The Caged Bird Sings
by DIVIDED-LEGION
Summary: With a deadly promise guiding the future of an unfortunate Draco Malfoy, his hope for survival rests on the mudblood shoulders of Hermione Granger; who seems reluctant to help her Hogwarts classmate. M for language/dark themes. Dramione fanfic.
1. A caged bird stands on a grave of dreams

CHAPTER ONE

_A caged bird stands on a grave of dreams_

A morose thought is a thought that's hard to quell when one is facing nothing but gloom.

From beneath a mop of dirty brown hair, a pair of russet eyes stared out at nothing specific in the room that had become her jail cell. So many questions dug at her skin, working their way beneath the surface to squirm around and make her even more uncomfortable and distraught than she already was. So many 'what if' questions and pictures of horrible scenarios of what could have happened to Harry and Ron danced around in her head; but unlike visions of sugar plums and nutcracker princes, these images were hardly welcomed. The attempted escape had hardly gone as intended (like anything _else_ they'd ever done went accordingly). The plan –as devised by Harry, Ron, and a very helpful Dobby- was to get Luna, Mr. Ollivander and Griphook out then Ron and Harry would somehow sneak up on Bellatrix, rescue her from the crazy witch and then apparate to safety. However, as is obviously pointed out by the dingily decorated dungeon the Malfoy's called a room; she hadn't made it out like the rest of them had. How was it that the brightest witch of her class could solve what seemed like the most impossible problems, and somehow end up in a situation like this? Ron would tell her that it was a little bit of her fault for not being fast enough, but that there was nothing she could have done. Harry would tell her that it wasn't her fault and maybe even mention great wizards like Dumbledore might have once found themselves in a miserable situation as such. Others (namely Malfoy and a few others) would tell her it was because she was a mudblood and therefore not good enough.

Closing her eyes and burying her face into her arms as they rested against her curled up knees, she tried to envision the entire scene again but just like every time she tried to analyze every little mistake in the situation, her memories only came up hazy; like she was staring into a fogged up mirror. Hermione wasn't quite sure how long it'd been since her entrapment, and for some reason she no longer cared. What good would knowing the difference between 8 am and 8 pm do her? And what hope of freedom could she possibly gain from the knowledge of whether or not it was Monday or Tuesday? Lost in her depressing thoughts she hardly heard (or simply refused to acknowledge) someone noisily walk down the hallway, arguing with a squeaky, high-pitched voice the whole way down.

Draco stood at the enhanced archway that kept his prisoner in her cell, watching her like a predator. The Dark Lord's words still slid around his skull like that big snake of his, hissing at him and scolding him for letting his parents fail to contain the Potter boy and his redheaded friend. He could still feel Voldemort's long and bony fingers as they gripped his arm. At the thought of their 'conversation', the snow-haired Malfoy shuddered. His spasm caused the silverware on the plate he held to clatter to the floor which made the mudblood look up. Bending down to grab the fallen fork and knife he looked up and scrunched his face up into an unpleasant sneer at the burning glare that Granger was sending in his direction. Straightening up he spat at her,

"What the hell are you looking at, mudblood?"

The tenor of hate was deftly clear in his voice and she almost recoiled from the venomous tone but rather than letting him get her on the ground and kick her while she was down there, she slowly stood up, ignoring the aches and pains of inactive muscles. Squaring her shoulders she lifted her chin as proudly as any prisoner could and dared to taunt,

"I was _wondering_ why you –the great and privileged Draco Malfoy- bothered to come down and eat his dinner in front of the starving prisoner."

Scoffing at Gryffindor's response he rolled his eyes and put on a smug expression and spoke with absolute gloating of his obvious freedom in his voice,

"Actually, the great Draco Malfoy was coming here to give this to you because as of right now you are no good to him dead." He paused for a moment and picked up a steamed carrot and ate it slowly, "but I'm really glad you made that suggestion because I'm hungry and the house elves have been _slaving_ over this meal all day."

Suspicion replaced the wavering hatred on Hermione's face as she eyed the platter of food. To her starved stomach, which gurgled and cramped at the sight of the food, the meal looked absolutely delicious. She did her best to hide the hunger in her hollow eyes as she stalked closer to the doorway without a door and stopped just a few feet away from where Malfoy slouched against the entrance, looking so relaxed and so carefree, even though he was practically dangling a steak in the face of a starved lioness –everyone knows that charms and hexed doorways can only keep a determined animal from a meal for so long. Desperation is a starving man's fuel. Biting her lip for a moment she asked,

"And why would I be no good to you dead?"

Draco simply laughed at her question and walked into the room only to put the plate on one of the two tables in there then walked back passed the line that Hermione could not cross. Turning around to look at his prisoner before he left, he shot her a crooked, cruel smile and simply said,

"Because I said so."

And before she had a moment to question him again (which would only irritate him further), he melded into the dark hallway and was gone. Standing there in her room, alone once more, she wrapped an arm around her torso and stared at the steaming platter of food. Even though her mouth watered to the point where she was sure if she dared open it to speak, she'd drool all over herself, Hermione was still greatly suspicious of the food. What if he put poison in the food and planned to watch her die slowly in certain agony as the poison worked its way through her system like a slow-moving fire? Or worse, what if he'd put couple drops of veritaserum in it and planned to ask her all about hers, Ron's, and Harry's quest to destroy Voldemort's horcruxes? Clenching her teeth she spit at the food finally and growled at it,

"No. You are just a front for something far more horrible. I will not indulge in your temptations, regardless of how hungry I am."

And with that, she offered it a quick nod as if agreeing with her decision and shuffled back to the corner she'd curled herself up in earlier before Malfoy came and interrupted her deep thought with his mind games and attempted murder. Still, even though she could no longer see the food, its smell had wafted around the room and try as she might, she could not banish the food-demons from her mind. Gritting her teeth she told herself that by giving in to his tempting act of fake kindness, he'd win just one of many battles in this war of wills. Eventually she dragged herself over to the poorly set up mattress that she called her bed and fell into a restless sleep plagued by nightmares ranging from dreams of a helpless Harry and Ron in the face of danger to Malfoy poisoning the food he gave her. Hours later she jolted awake and forgot where she was and frantically ran towards the enchanted archway in a half-sleep panic. There was barely any time spent out of the room before the magic kicked in and flung her backwards into the room at a furious rate. Stars danced in front of her eyes as Hermione groaned and rolled over, clutching her head to keep the pain from growing. It was at that very moment that a voice she didn't particularly want to hear reached her ears,

"My, my, Granger. I thought you had better sense than to run right into the enchantments that kept you in," he eyed the still full plate of now cold food and sighed heavily.

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

Walking with an irritated hitch in his stride into the room he grabbed the full plate in a huff of anger and handed it off to one of the house elves that'd tailed him down the hallway and demanded a plate of fresh food. Looking back at Hermione, she had finally sat back up and only held one hand to her head as opposed to both. Tutting quietly Draco narrowed his eyes and asked,

"Why haven't you eaten the food I gave you, Granger?"

"Because I know you," she snapped back.

A feigned pout pushed his bottom lip out as Draco replied with blatant apathy, "Oh, really? And here I was hoping that you'd be glad that I haven't killed you yet like I should have, be lured into a sense of trust and at least keep yourself from starving to death. Really, if you wanted to die so badly you could have just told me."

"Go to hell."

Rolling his eyes at her uncreative comeback he turned around and grabbed the new plate of food from the house elf that'd left just moments before with the old food and put the new plate back on the table. Looking at the food for a moment then to Granger, Draco questioned,

"What? Are you afraid that I've put something in the food that'll…make you spill the truth behind your darkest secrets or die a slow and horrible death?"

Her lack of reply was enough to confirm his question. Grumbling angrily at her stupidity and muttering a few curse words under his breath he marched back over to where the food was and took a bite out of one of the turkey legs and said,

"Still alive, and not spilling the truth, now eat –or I'll force feed you like a baby, and let's face it…that would hardly be enjoyable for you or me. So let's pretend that you're a big girl and you can feed yourself. I'll be back in a few hours."

He left as quickly and quietly as he came and once again Hermione was left alone in the room with no view with the enticing plate of food. Her fuzzy mind put up a few more feeble arguments before instinct beat out logic and she quickly stood up and grabbed the food and retreated back to her corner. The dirty locks of brown hair fell into her face as she scrunched over the elaborately decorated, gold-leafed plate. Food had never tasted to delicious in her life and her stomach, for once, finally stopped it's painful protest. And even though she was deeply grateful for the food, one question burned in her mind: why the hell was Malfoy feeding her five-star meals like he was planning to fatten her up like Hansel and Gretel before cooking her?

**A/N:** WELL. There's the start to this story. I would like to confess that this is my first fanfic! I am going to try my damnedest to not make updates excruciatingly slow. But I am an ADD person, which means so is my muse. But I really hope that for anyone that reads this, you stick around! Title of the fanfic annnddd the chapter title were inspired by Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I'm uncreative, so bite me. REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW! I wanna hear your feedback :D


	2. The free bird leaps

CHAPTER TWO

_The free bird leaps_

Draco Malfoy sat at the head of a very long dining table with empty silver plates and vacant platters that were not going to be filled with food anytime in the near future. Listless grey eyes watched in an uninterested gaze as a small group of Death Eaters discussed their next plan of action. For the most part, he ignored their useless babble and to a certain tolerable point they ignored him. With the deaths of his parents weighing heavily on everyone's mind as a very fresh reminder of how true failure was handled by the Dark Lord, most of the Death Eaters viewed the Malfoy boy as an unfortunate object of fate and avoided him like the plague for fear that their master would not appreciate their closeness to the boy and off them as well. To Draco, it hardly mattered why they didn't talk to him. It meant that he didn't have to converse with anyone at these stupid meetings unless he was called upon, simply meet their mournful gazes like they _knew_ what it was like to lose their parents due to someone's fit of rage.

Everyone's attempts at half-assed sympathy bothered the only Malfoy son to a very, very high degree. A week ago, a group of snatchers brought in three captives with very strange objects and one of them bearing a close resemblance to Harry Potter. And, well, everyone knows the story from there but what was not published in the Daily Prophet was that upon learning that he had been called forth on a false lead, Lord Voldemort decided to make an example to everyone out of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy; torturing them endlessly until they were on their last strings of life and hardly lucid anymore and killed them easily. No matter how many memory charms Draco had tried to put on himself, he could still hear their shrieks of pain echo through his mind like they were occurring every moment of his life. Sometimes the drowned out the words of everyone around him…

"…and then she'll die?"

He snapped out of his trance at the words and focused on a witch with dark curly black hair. Bellatrix Lestrange looked far too overjoyed with the announcement of the full extent of Draco's vow to the few Death Eaters in attendance. Naturally, his task that the Dark Lord had given him was to remain a secret, but with Draco's track record at 0-1 for completing what the Dark Lord wanted him to get done, perhaps the news was given out so the followers of the Dark wizard could make bets on how long the blond boy would last. Whatever it was, Bellatrix couldn't contain her excitement at the thought of it. Her shrill voice echoed through the room and bounced off the walls,

"So darling Draco has the chance to kill a mudblood? Baby, darling, sweet, Draco? How could he kill someone of his own age when he could barely point his ruddy wand at a frail old man?"

She caught the look of contempt on her relative's face and cackled loudly, she could hardly believe her luck! Just when she thought that her blond-headed nephew couldn't get in any more trouble, the Dark Lord presented him with a task that a mere seventeen year old could handle. Draco, however, felt the crushing weight of expectancy as it pressed down on his chest. With the reveal of his 'punishment', he now knew that from the Death Eaters that were privy to his assignment there would be a great deal of judgment. Suddenly the attention was off of him and they went back to idly chatting about things that Draco hardly cared to listen to. In fact, it wasn't for some time later when he looked up to realize that the Death Eaters were leaving the Malfoy manor's dining room table. "_Finally…_" he thought to himself, glad to get rid of them.

However, one remained. Draco leveled his gaze and lifted his chin at Bellatrix, who looked like a five year old in need of a desperate potty break as she wiggled around in her chair. Furrowing his brow Draco drawled,

"Yes, Bellatrix?"

Almost relieved that he asked her a question she rushed to his side and whispered, "Can I…can I see the mudblood bitch? We haven't had a chance to talk since she first came to the manor, and she was _such_ a pleasure to interview, maybe I could…loosen her lips for you a little, make this all easier for you…"

Draco glared at the gaunt-faced witch with a burning hate then sighed, and while he was vehemently against showing off his new prisoner to guests (like a boy in a sandbox with a new toy he doesn't want anyone to take), it was hard to deny Bellatrix anything she wanted if one valued their life in an unaltered way. Standing up he ushered her to follow behind him and walked down one of the hallways that led off from the dining room. Behind him, the witch looked around excitedly, her wide eyes taking in every picture frame that hung on the walls, memorizing every crack in every tile that they stepped over. When they arrived at her doorway Bellatrix peered in. It seemed as though they had happened upon the mudblood during a nap. Frowning like a kid staring at a sunbathing snake at the zoo she turned to Draco and whispered,

"Can I throw something at it to wake it up? Do you think it'd bite me if I went in and poked it? What if…it actually bit me! Could I hit it if it bit me?" Her expression was curious.

Gritting his teeth Draco shook his head and snapped at the witch, "She's not a fucking exhibit, Bellatrix. I had _hoped_ that you were wanting to see her to help me with my mission –without torturing her- but clearly you have proved me wrong. So therefore it is time to go." As he tugged on her arm to get her to dislodge her gaze from the sleeping girl she didn't budge for a moment, her dark eyes bulging as she spotted the plate of empty food on the table. In a sudden flurry of moment she moved towards Draco and grabbed him by the shoulder. He was hardly aware of what she was doing, but by the time his aunt had him pinned against the wall it was too late. Her face was merely inches away from his. His expression turned from surprise to disgust as he wondered if she was going to kiss him. But instead of doing what he had assumed she shouted at him,

"You're feeding it? Why in the blood hell are you feeding it? You are not trying to make friends, Draco. She is _not_ a pet, and she is hardly an associate worthy of decent meals." Bellatrix's dark eyes were darker with a mixture of anger and concern.

Not pleased with what she'd just done, he peeled his fingers off of his shoulders and gave her a rough shove backwards and yelled right back,

"I think it's time that you leave, Bella!" It was shocking to the younger boy when she obeyed his command. Watching the spot where she stood for a moment he ran a hand through his hair and cursed loudly. He knew that Bellatrix was right. He wasn't in this to make friends or to make up for past grievances he'd piled onto Granger's plate, he was purely in this for survival. But that didn't mean that he had to just torture her until she gave up information. Angered by the sudden clash or morals, Malfoy cursed loudly, kicked the wall (which was followed by a slight yelp and a loud swear word) and stalked back upstairs. Of all the Death Eaters that the Dark Lord had at his command, little Draco Malfoy had to be the one to get the trust of the mudblood that he had emotionally tortured for six long years.

Perhaps he would have been better off just letting the Dark Lord kill him.

**A/N:** Yep, very little of Hermione in this chapter, but I kinda wanted to establish exactly _why_ Draco still has Hermione locked up in a room like a rare and priceless gem. Sooner or later (whenever I decide) we'll find out about Draco's _exact_ arrangement with the Dark Lord ;DD AS ALWAYS, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW! I can't tell you how deeply excited I am to share this story with you guys!


	3. Through the bars of rage

CHAPTER THREE

_Through the bars of rage_

Beyond the comfort of being in the presence of friends and reading, there was one thing Hermione missed the most: being clean. While she was hardly a primped diva when she and the boys were traveling, she at least had the comfort of something that resembled a shower and the ability to practice good hygiene. She had not always been one to overly doll herself up for any sort of occasion (with the Yule ball and the wedding excluded), but she had taken pride in being a clean young woman; like anyone should. She was good about washing her hair, her face, her body and of course brushing her teeth had been a strong point of hers (when you grow up with dentist parents it's hard to neglect your teeth). She could remember trying to tame her tangles every morning but usually give up. She'd grin into the mirror, dance and laugh. Now though? She had hardly cracked any sort of facial expression that wasn't a glare of hate towards Malfoy. Maybe she'd had something that was a ghost of a smile when the house elves came and went in her room; otherwise she was as emotionless as any prisoner behind enemy lines would be. Oh what she'd give for a mirror. Not because she was interested in _fixing_ how she looked, but because she was interested in knowing how she looked. As far as she was concerned, her face was probably shiny with oils from her skin, her hair probably an even bigger mess of rat and owl's nests than it was before. Not to mention she was more than certain that there was dirt on her face. In short, she looked every bit of the prisoner that she was.

Hermione bolted straight up from her fit slumber at the sounds of shouting voices. As her sleepy mind came to, she recognized the voices as Bellatrix Lestrange and Malfoy. At the thought of the crazy witch, Hermione's skin crawled and a shiver raced up her spine. She could very clearly remember her last encounter with Voldemort's most loyal follower –she did not wish to repeat it. Suddenly there was a pop and then silence, fear laced her voice as Hermione called out to the dark hallway,

"Hello?"

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how you look at it) her timid question fell upon no one's ears and no reply bit back at her through the dark hallway. Slightly relieved she looked over at the table where the food for the day was generally left and realized that she'd already had her one meal. While she hadn't expected much from Malfoy's 'generosity' as he called it, she couldn't help but appreciate the food –even if he did have the house elves deliver it now. In fact, she had hardly seen him since he threatened to feed her like an infant if she didn't eat. Sighing she closed her eyes and tried to roll over and started to count backwards from one thousand. She was hardly aware of a pair of slate eyes watching her in her silent misery.

Draco _needed_ to get that information from her, he had to. This time, unlike his last (and first) task assigned to him, there would be no margin for error. It was life or death. He studied the mudblood for a quiet moment then scrunched his face up, god she looked like shit. He was hardly aware of how long he stood there simply staring, but it seemed that the mudblood Gryffindor began to sense a pair of eyes watching her like a lion would a wounded wildebeest and she rolled over and sat up. Blazing brown eyes met frozen grey ones and any traces of pleasure and happiness that might have inhabited her features before were burned away by pure contempt. Her harsh voice ripped through the silence,

"_What_ do you want? And why did you bring your bat shit crazy aunt down here earlier?"

He concealed the flicker of surprise that she had been awake and crossed his arms and drawled on with a bored tone in his voice,

"I was _going_ to ask how you liked your meals, but harsh words to not receive any merited kindness from me. As for Bellatrix; who I show you to and don't show you to is hardly any of your business nor do you have any say in the matter what so ever. I'll open up an attraction with you as the star of the show if I wanted, you could be my monkey playing the accordion if I wanted."

Hermione's mouth dropped open at his words and got up. Stalking over to the magical barrier, she stood just a few feet away from him and snarled,

"I would have _every_ say in such a situation. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm not some rare and magical creature for you to poke at and play with I-"

Her words were cut off by his own when his temper flared up,

"I said you would have no control! And you are whatever the fuck I tell you to be!"

"I am a human being Malfoy, I have cognitive thinking abilities, I have feelings, opinions, I have two thumbs and ten toes for crying out loud, just like you!" She replied, with her own heated anger.

At her statement, he sneered and crossed over into the bedroom and stood over her like a vulture would hang over a dead carcass. There was a burning look of defiance in his molten mercury eyes as he snarled in a low, dangerous voice, "You are a mudblood, Granger. You are the scum of the magical world. You might have thoughts, but half the time they're simply repeated facts from books that you have stuck your nose into like a desperate fool. Your opinions? Fuck them, they hardly matter to me and will get you _nowhere._ You might have thumbs, toes, two eyes and a nose but you are _nothing_ like me."

At first, there had been fear in her eyes, but as he continued on the fear was swallowed up by that deep-seated Gryffindor pride (or stupidity at this point). Her limbs trembled with anger as he pointed out the most obvious things in the world to her; things he'd spent six years mercilessly drilling into her head. Finally when he stopped, so did all of her reasoning. In one swift movement she brought up a hand and with all the force she could muster she slapped him across the face. The noise echoed and Malfoy reeled from the blow. One hand went up to the growing red mark, the other reached out for Hermione, who skirted just out of his grasp. Bile and rage built up in his throat as he started after her. As he took a few long strides to meet where she stood trembling, any residual bravery dwindled and she choked on her own fear as he grabbed her and threw her against the wall, pinning her there. The brunette gasped in pain as her head collided with the stone, stars dancing in front of her eyes. While in any other situation it might have been hard to take someone with a glowing red hand print on their face seriously, she had never been more terrified of one person –Lord Voldemort aside of course- in her entire life. He lowered his face to hers and through gritted teeth he explained,

"I told you earlier that you were no good to me dead, and as much as I'd love to choke the life out of you right now for that, I stand by my word. However, the next time you dare to touch me in such a manner, I will make sure that you wish I killed you. Do we have an understanding?"

Weak knees trembled beneath her as Hermione simply nodded her head. Satisfied with her answer, he let her go and hardly stayed to watch as she crumpled to the ground in a quivering mess of tears. On his way out of the room he grabbed the empty plate of food. Unable to hold herself together, Hermione brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as she placed her forehead down and simply sobbed. There was no hope for escape.

She had never felt so alone in her life.

**A/N:** Woo, chaptah 3 up! I want to thank the three people that have reviewed this story already, I'm glad that you guys like it and I am truly excited to continue this story. Someone voiced their concern about this being a cliche Dramione escape plan; and I swear to god, that while I like cliched things, I refuse to write anything cheesy and cliche for my first fanfic ;D ALSO. I know, quick updates, but an obsessed/museful Legion is obsessed/museful. I don't know at this point how long this story is gonna be, but judging by how _slowly_ I'm progressing the days, I'm judging...12 chapters? Loool. Idk, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. ANYWAY. LEGION OUT, ENJOY BR0S.


	4. His wings are clipped

CHAPTER FOUR

_His wings are clipped_

Ever since their 'fight' a few days ago, Draco had refused to visit, taunt, talk to or even think about Hermione. As much as it she knew it shouldn't, it bothered her that her only human company (though terrible company and an even worse host) quit strolling down the hallway to stand at the charmed doorway to stare at his prisoner, occasionally making snarky comments. As much as she didn't think she would, she missed his presence. But a socially starved rat in a cage is a desperate and socially starved rat. A few times she'd tried to speak to the house elves that came and went, bringing her the daily meal. Unfortunately, even with her attempts to converse with the poor creatures, most of them simply stared at her with horror filled eyes –possibly wondering why the mudblood was even daring to talk to them-, clamped their hands over their mouths and ran out of the room as quickly as possible. It's one thing to be rejected by a human, a whole other to be scum even under the feet of a house elf.

She had tried, at one point, to talk to one of the older elves that shuffled around her room cleaning up her mess of twisted dirty sheets on her bed about S.P.E.W. and what she had been trying to do for the house elves at one point. What she was not aware of (as she had never been, nor never understood) was the type of reaction she'd get from a fiercely loyal house elf such as the old one (who said his name was Kurt). He had turned to stare at her with absolute disgust and offense in his eyes that she had stopped talking about S.P.E.W. before he started to scold her about it. Telling her that 'his job was a noble one, yes it was' and that 'he was best off in the Malfoy house, unlike that ratty Dobby traitor'. He spat at her for being a 'filthy mudblood with good intentions' –oh yes, that one had caught her quite off guard, since she'd never exactly been insulted for her big heart; though Ron had chided her for it time and time again. After that encounter, she had stopped trying to talk to the house elves completely. That is, until one afternoon when a small female house elf stopped by her prison cell to question the mudblood.

The small leathery face was scrunched up as if trying to remember everything she'd been told to ask the girl in the room. Hermione gazed at the tackily dressed elf with questioning eyes and finally could not keep the questions from exiting her brain,

"Who are you?" She asked, in a kind and light tone, trying to keep the suspicion away.

The elf stared at the witch, shocked that she had actually spoken to her with a kind tone and said,

"Pearl is here to ask a few questions of miss Granger, the mudblood. Master wants to know some things…"

Hermione could feel her face grow pale. This was it, this was the day he'd put veritaserum in her food. He had waited for her to become complacent and trusting and like any traitor would, he stabbed her back while she wasn't looking. She tried to swallow the lump that formed in her throat and willed herself to try not to answer whatever Pearl asked (though she knew that it would be a pointless attempt).

"Master Malfoy was wondering what type of books you like to read?"

That was the last question in the world that Hermione would have expected to come out of the mouth of a loyal house elf working for her jailer. With her mouth agape, she felt the relief wash over her and she almost wanted to cry as she didn't feel the urge to spill every single little detailed answer to that question. Running shaky hands through her knotted and ratty hair, she looked back at Pearl and said in a trembling voice that only quivered because of the adrenaline high that coursed through her veins,

"I-I like to read any kind of poetry….and Shakespeare."

"Poetry, Shakespeare…Pearl will remember. Also, master Malfoy is curious to know if you are enjoying your stay at the manor?"

Hermione puzzled over the second question but simply remained silent. There were no words that could describe her hatred for the situation she found herself in, and even if they were found she knew that if she told them to Pearl, the poor house elf would probably be punished for saying such things; even if they were second-hand statements. Taking her silence as a cue to leave, Pearl padded quietly down the hallway and out of sight. Standing up and needing to walk off the several emotions that had just coursed through her body, she paced the restricted space until her legs burned and her feet were sore. Flopping down on the bed she had been provided, she started her count backwards from 1000 and barely made it to 800 before she dropped off into a sleep plagued with confusing dreams.

Walking down the hallway with a pile of selected books in his arms, Draco stopped at the doorway and frowned when he saw her asleep. Jesus, why was she always asleep when he came? Frowning he stood there for a moment, wondering if she was dreaming about Harry or Ron…did she miss her parents? Parents. He wished he still had them. In a moment of weakness the cracks in his steel façade grew and his expression softened into one that mimicked pity for the sleeping, dirty mudblood girl. It wasn't like she had _asked _for him to lose his parents then be threatened with death unless he found out what Scarhead and Weasel were up to and why they had the sword of Gryffindor in their grasps when they'd arrived at the manor. But nonetheless, it was hard to simply scour away seven long years of emotional torment and hard lessons of who he was and was not to like and not look at her in a begrudging manner. After a few granted moments of her peaceful slumber, Draco set the stack of books on the table just inside the door and shuffled through the selection. Picking out a small book that looked like it would cause minimal damage should it hit a human, he threw it at the slumbering mudblood.

Hermione awoke with a start at the feeling of something hard hitting her back. She let out a confused yelp of surprise and rolled over. Her brown eyes grew wide as she focused in on Malfoy standing there laughing like that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. She narrowed her eyes when she noticed the stack of books he'd brought her –and while it was a silly thought she wondered if he'd come to bludgeon her to death with the novels. Angry that he'd woken her just before her dreams got really good she snapped at him,

"What! Come to kill me through blunt force trauma to the head with the books and just say the house elves did it?"

Draco apathetically rolled his eyes at Hermione and sighed dramatically, "I told you, you were no good to me dead, stop being so defensive."

She was hardly ready to forgive their argument from a few days ago and her voice quickly reached a hysterical level as she practically screeched, "I can be defensive all I want, Malfoy! You have given me no reason what so ever to trust you! You lead to the death of Dumbledore; you've tried countless times to ruin my, Harry, and Ron's lives! You-"

She was cut off as Draco growled back at her, "All of your _fantastic_ examples aside, just shut your mudblood mouth for a moment and let me at least show you what I brought you."

He gestured over to the books and Hermione's suspicious gaze widened as she realized that he'd brought her several poetry books and a few plays. Looking down at the book that rested at her side she closed her mouth quickly and picked it up. It was a compilation of Emily Dickinson poems, and while she'd read the collection several times, she could hardly believe that she'd be seeing anything that resembled a book so soon. Clutching the book to her chest, the ever innocent look of surprise was ripped apart as she replaced it with an expression of dubious dislike for Malfoy and timidly asked,

"Why did you do this for me? I'm just your prisoner…I am nothing you'd want to please any time soon."

Pursing his lips in thought, Draco lied; "Because the house elves were beginning to get annoyed with you attempting to talk to them." Really, it wasn't that big of a lie because the house elves were growing increasingly disgruntled at the charitable mudblood and complained to their master whenever they thought it was within their place to complain –especially Kurt, who had informed Draco of the mudblood's kindly insulting words. Though, for anyone that knew the Malfoy boy, they'd know that he didn't give a shit if the house elves were comfortable or not, so long as they did what he asked.

Hermione, thankfully, bought his lie and opened the book, her eyes sliding over one of the poems and a soft smile that had hardly seen any action since her detention at the manor expressed her happiness at the familiarity of a book between her hands. Making gagging faces at her downturned face Draco finally interrupted her intimate book moment and asked,

"So, did I do good? Is that what you wanted?"

The reluctance to answer whether or not he had been 'good' (a potential pun intended) with the whole situation was obvious on her face and as she grappled with her morals for a quick moment, Draco relished in her internal pain. At least someone else was just as miserable as he was. Finally she nodded slightly and whispered a thank you.

Which was all he needed to know that he was on the right track.

**A/N:** And here's chapter 4! Look at me, all motivated and stuff. Thank you all for the reviews and for adding this to your watch list


	5. His feet are tied

CHAPTER FIVE

_His feet are tied_

It felt so weird to be treating muggle-born Granger like she was someone worth treating right. After seventeen years of having superiority through blood cleanliness pounded into him by overly prejudiced parents, there's hardly any room for improvement on his racism towards anything that isn't a pureblooded wizard or witch. And yet, for some reason he'd figured that there would have been more moral conflict on this whole situation than there was. Sure, she was his captive, she hardly had a hope in the world for her release, and he hardly treated her like an equal –but look what he was doing! Giving her decent meals once a day and books to temper the pain of boredom was hardly a way to uphold the reputation the Malfoy's had worked so hard on building. Though, this would not be the first time that Draco Malfoy would have proven himself damagingly hypocritical; it's hard to forget that dark day just a few scant weeks ago when a swollen-faced Potter, and dirtied Weasely and Granger showed up at the Malfoy doorstep in the custody of the snatchers. Being one of the few people in the household that would have theoretically spotted the Scarhead from a mile away, stinging jinx or not, Draco had been summoned forth to identify Potter. Every time Draco closed his eyes, the pain and the loss of that day was a clear as if it'd happened just hours ago:

Puffed up green eyes stared directly into his molten silver ones. Secretly, to Draco, there was no doubt that the young man that the snatchers had brought in was the one and only 'Chosen One'. But as Bellatrix urged Draco to identify his fellow Hogwarts classmate as he kneeled before him with his swollen and stretched face, Draco had silently begun to wonder what clarifying the identity of Harry Potter would do for his disgraced family. After his failure to kill Dumbledore (a fail he would rather die for than relive), Lucius's fall from grace and several other small scandals that exposed the Malfoy family beyond their turtle-shell of power and money, they were simply living at the mercy of the Dark Lord. To Draco, what if the Dark Lord just didn't give a fuck whether it was Harry Potter or not? Besides, it wasn't like he'd specifically asked for the lifestyle that he'd been thrown into, rather he'd done it on urgent request from his father and the deep seated desire to please him.

Being a part of the Death Eaters had been something that his father had done and with more than one occurrence, Lucius Malfoy had expressed great hope for Draco joining the coveted ranks of Voldemort's loyal followers. He had only agreed because…well, because it's hard to argue with a resurrected Dark wizard when he tells you you're going to do something that will redeem your family's otherwise disgraced name. He had taken that first mission as a glimmering, flickering flame of rapidly cooling hope that somewhere along the lines there'd be mercy for his mother and father. What he had not considered was how humiliated the Malfoy's would be should he fail. Then again, Draco was more of a doer rather than a thinker (as obviously demonstrated) and the moment he failed to kill Dumbledore as asked was the very moment Lord Voldemort should have killed them all. However, apparently in every vicious dictator, there's a bone of twisted forgiveness and it seemed Draco had found it in the Dark Lord. In light of his tragic failure on his first mission as a Death Eater, the Malfoy's were spared their life and simply put on house arrest in their manor and were forced to play host to the Dark Lord and several of his followers for a few days while heavy meetings pertaining to the inevitable war took place.

The night the Golden Trio showed up was just a few nights after the Manor had been vacated by everyone that wasn't a Malfoy. Bellatrix lingered behind on the Dark Lord's orders (and she was more than pleased to follow his commands), but beyond his aunt it was just him and his parents. The snatchers had brought them to the manor and everyone had their attention on the black haired, green eyed boy with a barely detectable scar. There had been something in Potter's eyes that night that spoke to Draco's otherwise latent humanity that had long since been suppressed and put in chains (still there, but under heavy lock and key). Hesitant he had told everyone he wasn't sure if it was who they thought it was and figured that they should wait for the stinging jinx to wear off. From there, the events of the night had become a blur.

There was Bellatrix torturing the mudblood for information on how they'd gotten the sword of Gryffindor out of her vault at Gringott's, there was the death of Peter Pettigrew for failing to attack Ron and Harry as they'd tried to escape. There was the traitorous Dobby as he took Ollivander, Luna Lovegood and the goblin Griphook to some unknown location, then there was the reveal –the prestige- to everyone that remained in the house that they did indeed have the boy who lived under their roof. In a flurry of motion, screaming, curses being cast, and action, Bellatrix had hastily called Lord Voldemort to the house and as he came, Potter and Weasely barely managed to escape with the mudblood left behind as an afterthought, like she hadn't been fast enough to move to where Dobby was apparating. Not wanting their only information link to Harry Potter, Bellatrix ordered the house elves to take the mudblood to one of the rooms and to place several anti-escape wards around the room, assuming that sometime in the near future she would be needed and not wanting their master to kill her the second he got there. By the time the Dark Lord arrived, the promised prisoner had gone and all that was left was a trembling, sniveling Bellatrix, a terrified Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco, and a very quiet Hermione.

As the Dark Lord surveyed the damage and registered the fact that Harry Potter was no longer where he had been told he was, Draco began to wonder whether or not the old saying that 'if looks could kill' was going to come true or not. The anger that resonated from the powerful wizard was hard to ignore, it crackled in the room like lightning in a summer storm cloud. There was cleverly controlled fury in the Dark Lord's voice as he leveled his gaze with Bellatrix and asked,

"Where is he?"

She had been increasingly reluctant to answer but knew that to ignore her master's wishes would only bring even more wrath upon them and explained the situation and what had happened. Except, when she was done she pointed at Lucius and Narcissa and said,

"They let him go, my Lord! They didn't do anything to stop him! All that was left behind was their muggle-born girlfriend or something! She is all we have!"

The betrayal had flashed across his parents eyes quicker than the anger that enveloped the Dark Lord's own snake-slit eyes. He rounded upon them and sent several torturing curses onto them. Their agonized shrieks pierced the once quiet room, reverberating off the walls and making the windows shake. Draco's entire body quivered from fear and several other emotions he could hardly understand. As the pain in his parents increased along with the volume of their screams, he backed up slowly until his back hit a wall. He brought a hand to his hair and gripped it as he slid down while his other hand covered his mouth as he did his best to stifle his own gasps and sobs. They should have seen this coming; they should have kicked Bellatrix out days ago. He should have just told everyone that it was Harry Potter, he shouldn't have shown mercy towards his biggest adversary –look where it had gotten him. His eyes could hardly leave the Dark Lord's face, sick at the sight of the wizard's pleasure of the entire situation as it lit up his expressions like a Christmas tree. There had been a brief moment when he managed to tear his horrified gaze away from Lord Voldemort to look at his aunt. He had been darkly satisfied to see a look of horror that mirrored his own on her gaunt face. Surely, he had hoped, she had not seen this coming.

The torture continued for several minutes before the Dark Lord finally tired of their agony and ordered Nagini to finish them off. As the large snake descended upon his dying parents, the Dark Lord loomed over a crouched Draco, who only curled up tighter in the man's presence, perhaps hoping that if he scrunched up tight enough he'd be small enough that the fearsome wizard would overlook him. Unfortunately that plan did not go very well as long, cold fingers reached down to grasp his arm and haul him up to a standing position. Draco shut his eyes and turned his head to the side, simply praying that his own death would come quicker than his parent's had. Lord Voldemort let go of his arm and gripped his face, turning it back to him and he commanded,

"Open your eyes and _look_ at me, boy."

Clenching his chattering teeth, Draco hesitantly obeyed. When he did, he searched the Dark Lord's eyes for something that would clue him in as to what would happen next, but he found nothing. Swallowing down his fear he tried to stop the bile that slowly crept up his throat. He wanted to hate this man with every fiber of his being, he wanted to wrap his hands around Bellatrix's throat and choke her to death for what she'd caused, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything that wasn't fear or the pain of the loss he'd just suffered. Adversely, the Dark Lord searched Draco's eyes for something –though Draco was not quite sure what. After a few moments of silence he finally spoke in a low and even tone that hardly hinted of what he had just done, as if his anger had been spent on torturing Lucius and Narcissa,

"My poor boy. You are too young to be so afraid of me. Come now, it was not like you had a hand in the boy's escape, right?"

There was almost a glint of cruel knowing, but desperate to save his own life Draco simply shook his head and the Dark Lord continued on,

"I have plans for you, young Malfoy. Plans and a mission that I know you are destined to complete. As you know I have already forgiven you for your failure to kill Dumbledore –but only because my most faithful Severus stepped in and did what you could not do. You have seen what I do to traitors and failures, and I don't want to have to do that to you. You are a valuable asset to me, and while I wish I could say that I trust you to do this, I must ensure your success, Bellatrix! Come here."

The nervous witch melded from the shadows and quickly appeared at her master's side, a questioning gaze in her eyes. Without much time for Draco to react, the Dark Lord dropped his hand from his face and grabbed his arm with the Dark Mark on it and instinctively, Draco grabbed the cold skin back. The second he did that, he knew what was coming. Voldemort looked over at Bellatrix and said,

"Draw your wand, Bellatrix. Bind me to this boy in an unbreakable vow."

Fear and loathing reared up in Draco's stomach and he spoke for the first time in ages, his mouth dry and his voice cracking,

"An…un-unbreakable vow?"

"Yes, Draco. An unbreakable vow. But only because I just want to give you a little incentive to complete your mission. I do not intend for it to kill you…of course, if you don't do as I ask you will. But I trust you won't fail me like you did before, right?"

There was no way out of this, so he simply nodded. With his forced approval, Bellatrix drew her wand and pointed it at their entwined arms, a thin beam of silvery light spat out from the tip of her wand and wrapped around their arms like a snake as the Dark Lord asked,

"Will you, Draco, do everything within your power to siphon the knowledge of what this captive mudblood has of Potter's whereabouts and doings and keep her imprisoned without her escaping?"

He reached for his voice but found it was lost and simply nodded –another beam of light shot out from Bellatrix's wand.

"And will you, when the time comes and you've gotten all you need from this girl, dispose of her in a proper manner?"

His eyes widened at the request, not out of surprise but out of fear (again). He should have known that he would be asked to kill again. He whispered a faltering reply,

"Y-yes, my Lord."

A strange smile crossed the Dark Lord's face at his reply and suddenly he dropped Draco's arm and beamed down at his young Death Eater. Clasping his hand on his shoulder, he brought is face close to the boy's and said,

"I expect things greater than your parents have done from you. I know you won't let me down, come, Bellatrix!"

Before Draco could say anything the Dark Lord, Nagini, and his aunt were gone in a dark puff of smoke. Finally alone he looked over to where his parent's mutilated bodies lay. Numbness spread through him as he shuffled towards them. In one night, he had lost everything and anything and had a death sentence placed on his shoulders. And now, he had no parents to guide him on his journey. He was utterly alone. Tears streaked down his anguished face as he fell to his knees in a puddle of blood, hardly worried as it pooled around the hems of his robes. A shaking hand reached out to stroke his mother's face. She looked so peaceful in death, it was like she was sleeping. He looked over at his father. Lines of worry had been smoothed out and replaced with a serene look of acceptance. A strangled sob choked out from his throat as he bent over them. The smell of blood filled his nose as he buried his face in his mother's clothes. How could this have happened to him? Why did it have to be him?

Draco violently twitched at the feelings of something poking him in the side. Angrily he swatted away whoever (or whatever) had disturbed him. Blinking through a film of tears he looked around the room and realized he'd fallen asleep in one of the large arm chairs in the living room. Looking to his left he recognized a pair of sad brown eyes as Kurt's eyes. He was looking worriedly at his master and explained his reasoning for waking him up before Draco could even ask,

"Kurt was cleaning the fireplace he was when he heard Master Draco crying out in his sleep. Kurt did not want to wake young Master Malfoy but he sounded so upset and the tears, it was the tears that made Kurt wake him up…"

At the mention of tears, Draco raised a hand to his face and felt the wetness on his cheeks. Hastily drying his eyes with the back of his hand he sniffed and snapped at the old house elf,

"Well, you should have just left me be."

"Kurt is deeply sorry for bothering you, shall he go iron his hands?"

Draco sighed and stood up,

"No, just, go do something else productive, Kurt. I'm going to bed."

Kurt bowed so low it looked as if he would fall over then backed out of the room and left Draco be. True to his word, he swept off to the upstairs potion of the house. But instead of going to his room he nudged open the door to his parent's room and stood at the doorway. He had not dared to touch their room since their death, but his nightmare had made him crave them. Without realizing what he was doing he moved to their bed and gingerly laid down on the plush mattress, closing his eyes he took a deep breath and took a deep breath.

Their lingering scent calmed his turbulent mind and sent him off into a calmer sleep.

**A/N:** So, this is kind of a filler chapter. It pretty much reveals why Draco's got Hermione all caged up, and is kind of my take of what would have happened if Lord Voldemort had gotten really pissed off that Harry escaped. It was also kind of my take on Draco's reasoning for being a Death Eater and a way for me to flex my skills on how well I could grasp his character. I view him as a very emotionally unstable being with limited control over his emotions (and I hope I've done a coherent job of displaying that without making him look bi-polar, lol!). BUT OMG. AN UNBREAKABLE VOW? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF SUCH A THING OOO: Haaaa. Long chapter, hope you guys like it! REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW AS ALWAYS!


	6. The free bird thinks of another breeze

CHAPTER SIX

_The free bird thinks of another breeze_

There was a routine that Hermione had quickly fallen into of waking up, eating her one provided meal, walking laps around the room until she was too tired to walk, then working on memorizing one book page by page (in attempt to ward off the stagnation of her mind) then when she grew tired she slept. It was as if she had needed _something_ she could organize and control. It had been hard to deal with the plain and painfully obvious fact that she was no longer the master of her own fate. At one point in her life, she had been extremely proud to be an independent person, she reveled in the chance to make her own choices and then sit back and watch with great delight and interest as her life swung this way and that simply based on what she decided to do. There's a certain bitterness in the life of being controlled that only the once free know. She had learned very quickly that no matter what she did, there was nothing that she could do to change her current situation.

Ever since the books had been given to her to read, she had started using them as a way to count as her 'days'. From the day he'd given them to her, she stacked up whatever book she finished, one on top of the other. Finally she had been given some form of time perception and suddenly for some strange reason, her life seemed to make a little more sense than the mind numbing routine she'd been forced into before Malfoy's snap of kindness. So far she'd gone through seven of the fifteen books Malfoy had brought her, meaning that a week ago from whatever day it was, her situation had started to look a little less bleak (though she was hardly fooled by any of this, for she knew better than anyone in the cursed manor that her life _sucked_). If there was at least one thing she felt she had a right to complain about, it was Malfoy's lack of appearances at her cell. Though she had sworn herself to a lifetime of hatred dedicated towards him, she missed her captor's presence. He provided her with semi-intellectual conversation, even if it did sometimes end in them arguing.

As she sat there on her bed, knees crossed beneath her and her back resting against the headboard with her dirty mop of brown hair concealing her equally dirty face, she poured over the pages of Shakespeare's _Hamlet._ Her mouth wordlessly spoke Hamlet's famous monologue as she committed each and every line of the most common suicide note to her memory. Why she had set out to memorize the books she'd been given, she was not sure. Perhaps (and more than likely), it just gave her something to do other than just read them. If she had a quill and parchment, she'd spend much more time on one book than just 'one day'. She'd analyze the author's intent of the poem or point out character flaws in the hero of the story. Unfortunately, she had nothing she could scribble down her thoughts on. Engrossed in her 'work' she shifted uncomfortably as she began to imagine feeling a pair of eyes watching her, though she didn't even look up to see if she was correct until slightly condescending words filled the poorly decorated room,

"_To be or not to be, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles_."

Hermione looked up with an expression of pure confusion on her face when she realized that Malfoy, Draco Malfoy had just recited the first parts of Hamlet's to be or not to be speech. Looking a little confused himself at her own bewilderment he sharply asked,

"What?"

Shaking her head to try to rid herself of the rude look and replied in a similarly sharp tone,

"I just didn't think you knew the beginning of that speech."

Frowning at her confession Draco entered the room and sat down on the table that contained seven books she'd yet to read eyeing the stack for a moment he didn't even look at her as he replied to her doubts,

"Actually, I know the entire speech."

Hermione did not seem very impressed (or convinced) of this and lifted her angled chin and challenged,

"Oh yeah? Then prove it."

Not pleased that he was having to _prove himself _to a fucking mudblood (but he had to think of the vow, always the vow!) he sighed and continued on from where he'd left off,

"_Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. - Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd."_

To say that seeing Granger's mouth hang open in unexpected surprise at this was not entertaining to Draco would be lying. She sat there with wide brown eyes, with her mouth dropped as if she was trying to catch flies for her next meal. Stifling a snort at her stupid expression Draco asked in a tone that was not as sharp as he'd used with his last question (though he was considerably more smug),

"Surprised, Granger?"

She shook her head to try to clear the fuzz from her mind then tilted her neck back to let out a hearty laugh. Draco Malfoy knew Hamlet! He knew the entire god damn monologue! How entertaining, she hoped he had not done it purely for her entertainment (though clearly it had worked). After a few seconds of what felt like her first laugh in ages she quieted down, wiped away a stray tear from her squinted eyes and said,

"Holy shit!"

Draco, looking far from amused by her giggle fit, simply narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms against his chest and asked in an offended voice,

"What?"

"You _actually_ know the entire speech! Oh my lord, I didn't think you actually did…to be honest I didn't even think you read."

He snarled at her, officially upset at her insulting words,

"Please, _mudblood_, you act like I'm just a push button thug."

At his statement, she leveled her gaze and gave him a 'are you fucking me?' look before snorting in a short bit of laughter and said,

"Not a thug? That's funny because last time I checked classy people with lots of money and a reputation to uphold didn't keep dirty prisoners locked up in their guest room."

Draco snarled at her and snapped as the little restraint over his emotions shriveled away, the jab at his family's reputation was like salt on a hardly healed wound,

"Fuck you, Granger. If I wanted _thugs_ to come entertain you, I'd leave you in here with Crabbe and Goyle for a few hours. I also probably have more class in my thumb than you do in your entire mudblood body."

Hermione shot him an almost fearful look at the mention of Crabbe and Goyle and instinctively wrapped a protective arm around her torso. He noticed her uncomfortable shift and did his best to dismiss her paranoia,

"Oh come off it, Granger. Like I'd let those rhinoceroses get within a hundred yards of the manor. They'd be breaking priceless family heirlooms and gold-leafed plates left and right. Your innocence and sanity is safe so long as they continue to lumber around like uncoordinated giants."

Recognizing an underlying tone of honesty in his voice, Hermione relaxed a little then questioned Malfoy,

"Is there any particular reason why you took the time to memorize one of the longest monologue's in Shakespeare's literary history? Or more importantly, _why_ do you know that? I didn't think you'd waste your wonderful pureblood time reading a muggle's work."

He grinned at her questioning tone and said,

"Oh, so you think Shakespeare was a muggle, do you?"

"Well, there's hardly any evidence that he was magical"

"There's hardly any evidence that he even existed at all. Besides, I've read some of that other muggle literature crap, and compared to Shakespeare's works, they look like a blind monkey wrote them. I would have to undeniably argue with you that Shakespeare was magical."

Hermione rolled her eyes and defended the muggle authors,

"Well maybe you just read some badly written stories. You should read some Charles Dickens if you want a good read."

Draco chortled at the suggestion and fought back,

"You mean if I'd like to die in my sleep from boredom!"

Hermione gasped at this,

"Charles Dickens is not boring! You're just a classless ass hole with no real sophistication."

He mockingly pouted at the mudblood as he realized he was poking all these tender places in her rock hard resolve,

"I see I've upset you. Anger is befitting on you. Makes you look less…muggle born."

If he were closer, Hermione decided that she'd probably hit him again (even though the last time she'd laid a hand on him he had reacted in a fairly terrifying ay). Instead, she settled for the battle of wits and intellect, glad to have someone other than herself to argue with,

"I'm not upset, _pureblood_, I'm simply saying that you wouldn't know good literature from a griffin's ass."

"I would too know good literature from a griffin's ass!"

His perplexing expression made her smirk and in a blind moment of foolish wit she used a joke that she had always thought was tactless and hardly insulting,

"Well, if you didn't it would be so easily explained because you're blond."

Unfortunately, it appeared that Draco had not heard such jokes and the attempt at the joke was hardly effective in stinging his nerves and instead earned her a look of confusion then a laugh that rivaled the heartiness of the one she'd given him earlier,

"Because I'm _blond_? Jesus Christ you mudbloods are weird as hell. Since when does one's hair color rectify whether they're smarter or not? Because if we're going to start insulting by looks, I would just like to point out that you look like you were dragged behind a carriage for several hundred miles, hardly the type of person I'd classify as being intelligent. If I hadn't known you and your insufferable know-it-all act from school, I would have pegged you as a dullard the second I saw you. In other words, you look like shit."

Clearly he'd hit another sore spot and her cheeks and ears reddened at the mention of looks. Her insecurities did the dirty work for Draco as she slowly marked the page she'd been holding open on her book and gave him an increasingly saddening look. Looking closer he realized there was a small film of tears forming on her eyes. She had not expected him to take her insult and twist it into something that was hurtful; not that such a think should have truly surprised her. This _was _Draco Malfoy after all, and he was hardly known for his big heart and loving nature. Still, she was shocked at how quickly he had gone from harmless banter to damaging insults. Wiping away a tear or two that fell down her dirty face she scowled at Draco as he looked at her awkwardly.

In all honesty, he had not meant to make her cry, and was generally uncomfortable around people and things that cried. He had shifted uneasily on the table, but offered no kind words of encouragement nor any sort of apology. He saw no reason to apologize to her. Finally, after they watched each other for a few moments, Hermione sniffled a little and asked with a wavering, hurt voice,

"Well, are you done here?"

In the time that'd elapsed from him actually arriving at her cell then repeating the entire To be or not to be speech for her and then to insulting her then to where they stood now in their conversation Draco had completely forgotten why he'd visited her. Shaking his head he stood up and inched towards the archway, trying not to make it too obvious that he was more than happy to get away from her and her womanly emotions. But as he turned his back to leave, Hermione asked him another question in that pathetic withering voice of hers.

"M-Malfoy…do you think you could get me a quill, ink, and some parchment? Books just aren't enough to keep me entertained…"

In fact, her question had been so quiet that he hardly heard her ask it, but unfortunately he did and for some reason he was obligated to turn around and answer. Sighing he ran a hand through his neatly combed blond hair and looked at her for a moment. He knew that if he hadn't have gone and upset her, she wouldn't be sniveling like this. And since it was in his best interests to keep her as happy as he possibly could without letting her escape he finally shrugged and said,

"Yeah, I'll see what I can do."

**A/N:** To be honest, I amaze myself with how quickly I'm getting these chapters up. HOW STRANGE. Also, yaaayy first ~long~ conversation between Draco and Hermione...which ended in her crying LOL Y U SUCH A DICK, DRACO? Anyway. Um, I myself laughed at Draco's reciting of To be or not to be (though he's the only one that finds it a sirius matter :), but me being me, and knowing the entire speech, at least one character I write with every now and then is going to drop that speech into something. LET US ALL RAISE OUR GLASSES TO JUNIOR YEAR ENGLISH FOR THE MEMORIZATION OF THAT ONE LOL. Um, yeah. Slight development of the story's plot? Probably not, haaahaaa. Also, I brought to my own attention that there's a plot inconsistency in chapter's 2 and 5. In chapter two I've got Bellatrix excited to learn what Draco's gotta do to Hermione...annnddd in chapter 5 I've got Bellatrix doing the vow.../that awkward moment when you forget what you've had characters do and say...anyway, to cover my bases we're all going to focus on the fact that Voldemrot simply asked Draco to ~dispose~ of Hermione, not kill her. And for that, we are going to just say Bellatrix didn't pick up on it...because she's slow. BABBLE BABBLE BABBLE GOES THE LEGION. Reviews, as always, are deeply welcomed!

**EDIT: **Thanks **Briett** for pointing out my embarrassing mix up of _Charles Dickens_ poor name. THANK YOU FOR HAVIN' MY BACK!


	7. The trade winds soft through the trees

CHAPTER SEVEN

_The trade winds soft through the sighing trees_

Much to Hermione's surprise, Draco had complied with her wishes for parchment and quill fairly quickly. To be honest, even though he was doing his best to 'be nice' to her and treat her as good as any mudblood prisoner in a fiercely pureblood household as he could, she expected him to at least wait until she was done with all of her books before he came with the other things. And even then, she had hardly expected him to leave the books, like she would have had to trade one for the other. So naturally, when he'd had them delivered to her via Kurt, she could hardly believe what the old house elf was carrying. It had been a long time since she'd held a narrow quill between her fingers and even longer since she'd actually written something. At first, she wondered if she should waste the semi-large roll of beige parchment on her silly nonsensical ramblings about questions of book plots and meanings of poems. She wondered if she should write out a will, not like she had anything worth giving away, but Hermione was very certain that she was not getting out of the Malfoy manor alive. In the end she decided to go on with her original plan of writing down theories on plot lines and author's intentions.

Book ten sat on her lap, open to a page of poems on civil rights from America in the late 60's. As her eyes grazed over one poem called _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_ by Maya Angelou, her lips twitched into a smile. Bending over the book she looked at the words and read the piece of literature at least twice before concluding that it was pure irony that such a poem would be in the book that Malfoy had given her to read. She wondered if he knew of Maya Angelou…he had most certainly proved her wrong about knowing Shakespeare. However, at the thought of his rude comment from the other day, she felt insecure all over again. It didn't exactly matter to her that he was her jailer and she would have hardly expected anything _nice_ to come from the mouth of Draco Malfoy, but he had been showing signs of latent humanity that she hardly knew existed beneath the thick layers of prejudice and pride. If she didn't know better, she would have thought him to be almost personable, like he was someone she'd enjoy talking to. She certainly enjoyed arguing with him, that much was certain.

Hunched over her book as she sat on her bed, dirty locks of hair fell into her brown eyes and instinctively she went to run her fingers through her hair (something she had worked very hard not to do since her capture, for obvious reasons). Frustration clouded her expression when her fingers got trapped in her brown mop's tangled tresses. If she had her wand she'd hex the rest of her hair off. What good was it to her dirty like this? At the thoughts of being dirty as she pulled her fingers out of the unforgiving grasp of her bushy mane and bringing a fairly decent knot of hair out with her clenched fist she stared sadly at the brunette clump in her equally filthy hand and suddenly realized how unclean she felt. There was a mirror on the wall opposite from her. She had hardly used it since she had been put in there, but again; she was hardly out to impress anyone. It wasn't like Malfoy was just going to let her go if she got a chance to clean up, as if he'd decide that she cleaned up real nice and didn't deserve to be kept like a rat in a cage.

Without much thought she stood up and strode over to the mirror. Leaning in she looked at her shockingly different face. Where two once bright brown eyes had been, two hollow holes of sorrow stared at her. Dirt smudged her nose and her shiny, broke out face and her cheeks were definitely far more gaunt than they'd been before with the angles of her bones sticking out –from the one meal a day and stress no doubt. And her hair, oh God her hair. It looked like what had once been a semi-tamed mane of brown hair had suddenly been transformed into an active owl's nest. Knots were prevalent and dried blood from those few weeks ago when she'd been captured made strands of her hair stick together here and there She frowned at the Hermione that looked back at her sadly. Pursing her lips at reflection-Hermione she sighed and miserably told the mirror,

"Yeah, Malfoy's right, you do look like shit."

Not exactly wanting to examine herself any further she turned around and caught sight of her blond captor standing at the doorway with an amused look on his face. The second she spotted him her wounded façade dropped and was replaced by one that emulated disgust, with a sharp and unpleasant tone to her voice to mach she asked,

"What do you want, Malfoy? I'm still mad at you for being a prick, you know."

He raised a curious almost too blond to see eyebrow and said,

"Really? I was hoping you were in a lenient mood. I mean, I made sure you got a good meal this morning, I even had the shit you _begged_ me for delivered in a fairly timely manner. You are very, very bad at this forgiveness shit."

"Is that so? Well, it doesn't matter because nothing changes the fact that I'm _still mad at you._"

"For what," he challenged, "for telling the truth?"

Hermione scowled at the Malfoy boy and snapped,

"No, because there are nicer ways to tell the truth."

Draco laughed at this. Him, nice about appearances? Where was she getting such poppycock thoughts from? In a brief fit of worry for his reputation, he began to wonder if he had been getting too nice to her, but then remembered that once this was all over with, she wouldn't be around to prove to him that her lips were looser than a hooker's legs. She would be dead. Gone, six feet below where she'd rot away into someone that no one would remember once all of her old friends had died of. Still, he felt bad for the bitch, which was why he'd come,

"Well, I guess you don't want to hear what I was going to do for you then, since I'm so mean."

The mudblood eyed him curiously, clearly taking the bait for his 'surprise'. Narrowing her eyes she crossed her arms and defensively asked,

"Oh yeah? And what would that surprise have been?"

"Well I can't tell you now; you already told me I was a prick. And I don't know if you know this, but pricks don't give prisoners treats."

"Pricks don't do anything! I don't even know why you're bothering with me at all, I-"

"I was _going_ to let you take a shower today, but you seem uninterested."

He had cut her off midsentence, and when he spoke her mouth remained open. A shower? He was going to let her clean up and attempt to look like she _hadn't_ been without access to running water for several weeks? In an instant, her eyes narrowed and she spoke in a low tone,

"A shower, really? Come on Draco, we all know you're far too rude to grant me that luxury."

He smirked at her, "You called me Draco, which that means you're desperate for this and are doing a bad job at portraying your reluctance to trust me."

She frowned at him in return, keeping silent.

"I see I pegged you just right. How exciting! Now hurry up and make up your damn mind before I get tired of standing here."

"I-…I get to take a shower?"

It was funny how after weeks of confinement the sudden highlight of her life wasn't her release, but the once granted privilege to practice good hygiene. She stepped a little closer to the magical barrier that separated her from the rest of the world and her escape and asked again,

"You're letting me take a shower?"

Obviously annoyed by the repeat of her question he rolled his eyes and pointed his wand at the barrier. She watched as the opaque spells melted away, leaving her with an entirely open doorway,

"Yes, a shower. Though, I wouldn't even think of trying to apparate if I were you, I've already taken that precaution and set up a ward all around the mansion."

She had hardly thought of any sort of escape plan. At the mention of it, her eyes quickly flickered to his wand, wondering if she could reach for it quick enough, but he caught sight of what she was eyeing and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans and mockingly said,

"Oh stop it, Granger! You're so desperate it's _almost _cute."

She narrowed her eyes and took a tentative step over the threshold of the room. Taking a deep breath as if waiting for the magical kick to throw her back into her cell she looked around in pure amazement as she was able to stand there on her own. Noticing that she was getting her freedom legs back on, Draco swept off down the hallway and beckoned her to follow. Without hesitation she scurried after him, following at his heels like a loyal dog. She was entirely speechless. She was going to have a shower! A shower, she was going to be clean! If she were a little less upset by the entire situation, she'd dance or scream for joy. It didn't take long for them to arrive at the bathroom. Malfoy opened the door for her and ushered her in. With her back turned as she stared around the lavish space clad in yellow-gold hued tiles with green accents she wondered if she'd ever seen such a beautiful space. In fact, she'd been so engrossed with the entire situation that she didn't even realize that Malfoy had shut the door on them and was leaning against it, refusing to leave. She went to turn around to grab a towel and start taking her clothes off, but startled and stifled a surprised scream to see him still standing there with a smug look if what she figured was indifference across his face.

"What are you still doing here?"

He smirked, "Waiting for you to finish your shower so I can take you back to your room."

She frowned at this and felt strangely uncomfortable, "You can't just wait outside?"

He looked like he thought about it for a second before cockily replying, "Well, I could…I suppose. But there's something about knowing that just me being in here is going to irritate and annoy you that keeps me here. I'm a sadist, what can I say?"

"B-but…you have to leave!"

"No I don't. This is my house, my rules, and you're _my _prisoner."

She shot him a look that he could have swore was fear. What was there to be afraid of? It wasn't like he'd rape her any time soon –he shuddered at the thought. If given the choice, he'd much rather stick his dick in an alligator's mouth than into her mudblood body. A little disgusted that she was even daring to think about such a thing he said,

"I'm not staying in here for sexual favors or pleasure or whatever the hell you think my reasoning behind this is, mudblood. I'm here because I want to annoy and embarrass you. I thought we already covered that."

At the mention of sexual favors and pleasure, she turned visibly red in the face, inwardly chiding herself for such thoughts. Who was she again? Oh right, Hermione Granger, insufferable know it all mudblood that she _knew_ Malfoy would rather throw off a cliff than shag. Still, there had been that extremely brief and very random thought of what it'd be like to sleep with him. Shaking her head slightly and taking a big breath, she realized that there was no way he was going to leave any time soon (much to her dislike) she asked,

"You're not going to...watch, are you?"

"I've got better things to do than answer something that stupid. If you're done asking stupid virgin mudblood questions that I will refuse to respond to, please take your god damn shower."

At the obvious pointing out of her lack of sexual experience color flooded her cheeks again and Draco simply smiled at her, God she was fun to bother. Frowning at his impatient reply she turned around and started to take her shirt off before swiveling back around with innocent concern in her dark brown eyes as she hastily questioned,

"But really, you're not going to watch?"

"No, I was going to stare at you the whole time and masturbate while I do it."

She stared at him, open mouthed, clearly missing the sarcasm that practically dripped off his tongue. At her horrorstricken face he grumbled very loudly at her,

"Jesus Christ, Granger. I already told you I wasn't staying in here for that. Why are you so concerned and unwilling to trust that no, I don't want to see your naked body?"

"I don't trust you…"

"Why? Because I'm male and therefore I must _always_ think with my dick?"

"No, it's not that, it's just that-"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I don't care about you, I don't care to look at you, I don't want to even think dirty thoughts about you –I'll have to spend a week cleaning my brain if I do- so you can quit your worrying shit."

"But-"

"God damn it, Granger! Get your dirty ass in that fucking shower before I come over there, strip you and bathe you myself, which like me force feeding you, would make for an awkward situation! That or I could just let you stay dirty. And to be honest, I'm leaning more towards the second option."

The witch's mouth hung open in surprise and offense. But as she stood there longer she began to evaluate the serious tone in his voice and decided that if he had to, he really would do it. Hesitantly she stripped off her dirty shirt and pulled off her pants. Closing her eyes she unclipped her bra and peeled of her panties. In a flurry of movement she practically dashed to the shower and turned the water on, hoping he hadn't seen much (if he was actually watching). Once the warm water hit her body she completely forgot that Malfoy was in there.

He should have known that she'd be so upset with him, but he could have hardly passed up the chance to make the Gryffindor pride and joy upset. When she dashed into the shower and lost herself in the steam and stream of warm water he waved his wand at her dirty clothes, making the grimy shirt and torn pants disappear and quietly excused himself from the bathroom to go hunt down clean clothes for her. Not really sure what to give her and not exactly wanting to give her any clothes of his mother's, he reached into the back of his closet and pulled out a pair of black slacks he'd out-grown years ago and a Slytherin polo. He smiled at the shirt and decided that while she'd probably hate him for it, but since he'd gotten rid of her other dirty clothes, she'd have no choice but to put on the clothes he had or simply live the rest of her detainment in her bra and underwear. And, judging by her horrified words at just the thought of him being in there while she showered, he figured she'd go for the clothes. Making his way back to the bathroom, he rudely barged in. She stood at the mirror running a brush through her unruly wet hair wrapped in a towel. Clearly she had gotten lax at the knowledge of his absence and turned and screamed when he reentered, clutching the top of her towel to keep it from falling down. He smirked at her and said,

"Oh, there was actually a person under the layer of grime."

Hermione glared at him and snapped,

"You could have knocked."

He gestured to the room around them and reminded her, "My house, my rules."

She eyed the clothes draped casually over his shoulder and she timidly asked,

"Are those for me?"

He narrowed his eyes and spat, "No, they're for me. I was going to give you the clothes I'm wearing now." Balling up the pants and shirt he threw them at her and surprisingly hit her in the face. She jerked backwards and yelled at him,

"What the fuck, Malfoy? I could have slipped!"

He laughed at her anger, "And I would have picked you up and fixed any broken bones. You are so uptight. I wonder if we shoved a lump of coal up your ass would you shit out a diamond?"

Her eye twitched slightly and she threw the brush that was in her hands at him. He caught it and closed the short distance between them. Taking her face in one hand he squeezed her cheeks hard as he glared at her, his unpleased voice snaking out between gritted teeth,

"I'm pretty sure we've talked about you not throwing things at me or hitting me, right?"

She squirmed beneath his grip as his short-trimmed fingernails dug into the soft skin of her clean face. One hand scrabbled at his wrist while the other still tried to hold up her towel. He took a step closer to her and she took a step back. Their one-direction dance continued until her back hit the wall. Suddenly he had her pinned with no escape. Realizing this, he smirked and loomed his face closer to hers but instead of kissing her he simply growled in her ear,

"I do clearly remember us talking about you not hitting me."

Fear flashed in her eyes as an involuntary shudder raced down his spine as his hot breath tickled her ear. Suddenly she released his wrist and aimed a feeble punch at his chest. Shocked at her action though it'd hardly hurt at all, he released her face and took a step back. Giving her a judging look he dropped his serious tone and spoke in a bored pitch,

"Please put some clothes on Granger, I'm not going to hit a naked girl. That's just weird."

Thinking how close they'd been and how his breath had felt against her ear she twisted a wet strand of hair around her index finger as she coyly replied,

"Or maybe I'll just stay naked."

Draco, looking largely unimpressed at her attempts at flirtation he scolded her with a predictable roll of his eyes,

"Just get dressed and don't ever try to use whatever tone of voice that was with me. If it was flirting, you suck at it. I'm hoping you just had something caught in your throat."

Blushing she shot him a slightly hurt look and picked up the clothes he'd thrown at her off the floor and turned her back so she could get dressed. Respectively, Draco turned away as well. He didn't turn back around until her heard Hermione gasp at the shirt he'd given her. Smirking he turned back around to see her holding the shirt in her hands, eyeing her with a look of feigned curiosity he asked,

"Something wrong?"

She lifted up the shirt and pointed to the Slytherin house crest on the right chest side of the shirt and screeched,

"I am not wearing this!"

"Well, ok. I guess you can just wear your bra then?"

"No! I want a different shrit!"

"Sorry, that's the only one I have that will fit you."

"Why the hell are you having me wear your old clothes?"

"Because I am obviously not wearing them anymore."

She glared at him and said, "Well, I'm not wearing this shirt."

Frowning at her he asked, "Why are you biting the hand that's feeding you, Granger? I'm _trying_ to be nice to you. I didn't _have_ to let you shower. I didn't even have to give you clean clothes, but I did. And why is that? Because I'm a nice mother fucking guy! Now put the shirt on!"

His shout made her visibly shrink and reluctantly she pulled it over her head. Frowning at it in the mirror she took a step back and sighed, quietly saying,

"At least they're clean, right?"

Unfortunately, the clothes didn't exactly fit her. Though the slacks were from his fifth year, they were still long on her and the cuff of the pants dragged the ground. The shirt was the only thing that was close to fitting. Studying her for a moment he finally opened the door and dragged her out of the bathroom. She followed behind, not exactly wanting to go back to her room after getting some freedom, but she had known all along that it was inevitable.

Back at her room and with the charms that kept her there back in place she looked around the bleak space. Why couldn't it be as brightly decorated in there as it was in the bathroom? Suddenly, she felt alone and depressed again, any residual happiness from the shower had successfully melted away as the room sucked all hope from her like a Dementor. Done with his prisoner for the day he turned to leave but Hermione quickly asked him a question,

"Malfoy…what-what day is it?"

Turning to look back at her he simply replied,

"Tuesday."  
>"Of?"<p>

"A month."

"Please?"

"No."

Why he wasn't telling her the exact date she wasn't sure. Feeling a little more discouraged she hunched her shoulders slightly and said,

"Oh…ok. Um, thank you?"

"Whatever."

And with that, he was gone and she was alone once more.

**A/N:** So, I swear I'm going to reach my self-set two chapter a day quota. This is by far the longest chapter (and one of my favorites)! I have nothing much to say...hmm...I suppose I'll just thank everyone who's taken the time to review this and I hope everyone's enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying writing it :3 Reviews are of course much appreciated!


	8. He opens his throat to sing

CHAPTER EIGHT

_He opens his throat to sing_

It had been a month since Hermione had been unfortunately trapped at the Malfoy manor, and while his prisoner could only guess at how long it'd been, Draco had been counting off the days. He knew that in another week Voldemort was going to call another meeting at the house and he'd be put on the pedestal by the Dark Lord and presumably bragged about and lied about. He'd be sung praises of how hardworking he was and how diligent and loyal he had proved himself to be. The very thought made his stomach turn, because as far as he was concerned, to the Dark Lord he was none of those. He had hardly asked to be put into the crazy man's legions, it had simply been something he did out of a whim in hopes of living up to the son that his father constantly pushed him to be. Of course, now with his dad gone, there was hardly anyone around to push him to strive to be the better wizard, and in some cases he saw through his father's bullshit and began to realize that not everything he'd been told was exactly the truth. He had been taught to fear and loathe muggle borns; that they were hardly someone he should associate with, much less treat fairly.

And yet, look at him! Look how contradicting he was proving to be. He knew that somewhere Lucius Malfoy was turning over in his grave because of it, but if there was someone to have a finger pointed at for his recent actions, it'd be Bellatrix. Dear old auntie Bella. When the family was down on their knees she kicked them in the ribs then let someone break their necks. Every time he thought of it he wondered how he managed to face her at ever Death Eater meeting, how he could even let her into his house. She had brought nothing but sorrow and destruction on the Malfoy family. If he had the power, he'd disown her, but hardly being anyone of significant power in the family, he doubted that he could simply renounce her. Though, he thought about it often and the thought of it always seemed to bring a sick smile to his face. She didn't deserve the money she had; she didn't deserve the prestige that came with her name. She didn't deserve to be so close to the Dark Lord. If anything, she deserved to be in some unmarked grave without a coffin, with maggots eating her rotting flesh. A gruesome thought, but it was most certainly one that quelled the bubbling anger in his stomach that threatened to rise up every time he dared to spend even a second of thought on her.

Regardless of what he thought of Bellatrix, there was hardly anything he could do about his situation now other than simply sit and stay along for the ride and do his best to survive this speed bump in the road. Though, he knew that unless he stopped skirting around the issue, he wouldn't be making it past the next Death Eater meeting when Voldemort would undoubtedly ask him how he was progressing with his mission. He had tried several times to force himself to ask her, but he had always stopped simply because he knew that she wouldn't tell him a damn thing, even with all of the 'nice' things he'd been doing for her. More importantly, he was still hardly willing to just torture her for information. Perhaps it was because for some odd reason he felt sorry for her, or maybe it was because the images of his parent's torture was still fresh in his mind, with their screams continually echoing off the walls of his skill and sometimes drowning out all coherent thought. Whatever it was, Hermione should probably count her lucky stars that he hadn't resorted to that just yet.

He had been sitting alone at the head of the unnecessarily large dining table immersed in his thoughts when one of the house elves approached him. It was rare that they dared to speak to him first, so when the young female, Pearl, told him that the young witch in the old room was asking for him, he slowly pulled himself from his self-pitying thoughts and stared at her,

"I'm sorry, what?"

Pearl averted her gaze when his eyes met her and shuffled her feet, speaking in a quieter, less confidant tone than before she repeated,

"The young mudblood witch that master is keeping in one of his many guest rooms. She asked for you…"

He huffed in an annoyed manner and stood up quickly. The weathered house elf cowered as he brushed past her, perhaps fearing of a beating. She was thoroughly confused when no harm fell upon her. She stared at the retreating back of her master before scurrying back to the kitchen to prepare his dinner. Hermione could hear his disconcerted footsteps the second he entered the hallway. They were less stealthy than they usually were and he hardly took care to pick his feet up, the soles of his shoes hit loudly against the hardwood floor. She stood expectantly at the magical barrier with her arms crossed and her foot tapping loudly. She was agitated and tapped her bare foot expectantly. When he arrived he shot her a very strange look, but before he could question why she'd bothered him she said,

"It's been a week since I had a shower, and I don't know if you know this, but I've run out of books. I'd like more."

Draco snarled at her demanding tone and contemplated hitting her in the head with one of her bloody books and snapped at her,

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before you went and read them all so quickly."

She stomped her foot and scoffed at him,

"It's been at least two weeks, Malfoy! I've carefully spread them out over that time! I didn't want to run out quickly, but now I did, and I'd like more."

"And how do you know that it's been two weeks?"

"Because I have a routine, I wake up, I walk around then I read an analyze, I eat then I sleep."

He narrowed his eyes even further at her and growled, "But how do you know for sure that it's been two weeks? For all you know you could have the most fucked up sleep schedule in the world and it could only be three days."

She hardly liked that answer and snapped back at him,

"That and you've worn several different outfits each time you've come to visit me."

"I could just be fucking with you."

"But why would you do that?"

"Because it's fun."

She glared at him then put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin,

"Well, are you going to get me those books?"

He was hardly enjoying her bossy tone and figured she had gotten secure around him, secure enough to be a bitch again. He missed the fearful mudblood. Perhaps he should accidentally forget to tell the house elves to give her a meal for a few days, remind her who was in charge. Instead, he crossed over the barrier and stood just a foot away from her and challenged her in a dark tone,

"And what, pray tell, are you going to do if I fail to comply with your wishes? In case you've forgotten, _mudblood,_ you're in my house, under my rules. I don't have to keep doing all of these nice things for you. I could let you waste away into a sack of skin and bones, crazy from boredom."

As always, the close proximity made her nervous and she shifted on her feet and her arms once crossed, fell to her sides and fidgeted with the hem of the shirt she wore and averted her eyes as the fight slowly began to leave her eyes and voice,

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you did…"

Draco scoffed at her, "Oh, so now you're saying I should do it because you think I like to see you happy?"

That re-ignited the fire and she met his gaze with a burning ferocity, "You wouldn't be doing all this shit if you didn't, Malfoy! You wouldn't be feeding me decent food, you'd hardly care whether I was clean and wearing clean clothes and you wouldn't have given me the books or the parchment and quill! I was just hoping that maybe that latent, hibernating humanity that I've seen there underneath all of those layers of hate and bigotry!"

During her speech, she had gotten progressively closer and was in decent proximity of his face, he craned his head into his neck a little to try to escape her angry face as it invaded his line of sight. He grit his teeth, good God why was she so irritating?

"I'm assuming that my recent actions bring to question every single assumption that you have of me, and it's bothering you deeply, and now you're just trying to push the boundaries to see how far you can make me bend. Well, here's a little information for you mudblood," with a simple hard shove, he sent her reeling towards her bed. She tripped as the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she crumpled back on it. Sitting up on raised elbows she watched him with waning defiance as he stalked closer to her, each step carefully planned with the grace of any predator, "You are simply something that I have to keep here until I get what I want from you. I have only been nice to you because I figured you'd let your stupid muggle emotions come into play and start to think that maybe I wasn't so bad."

Hermione up at him and spoke in a highly hysterical voice, "Are you saying that you'd hope I would simply forgiveseven years of torture? Or even worse, do you think that by giving me a few meals to keep me from starving to death and a shower and clean clothes would make me _forget_ that it was because of you that Dumbledore died?" She rose back up to standing and got in his face once more, "how stupid are you, Malfoy? Do you live in such a deluded fantasy world that you would honestly believe that I would just throw away all of your crimes against me? That I'd just kind of look past the insults and years of emotional persecution?" She stopped for a moment to catch her breath before screaming in his face, "you are absolutely out of your mind, Draco Malfoy!"

Angry at her outburst he shoved her back down onto the mattress and hovered over her, pinning her there. She struggled underneath his grip, and as she tried to rip an arm from his hands he tightened his fingers around her forearm until she winced in pain. He got incredibly close to her face and explained in a deadly calm manner,

"I think you've gotten far too comfortable with all of this. You need to realize that I am simply keeping you alive for ulterior motives that you could hardly begin to understand. If you would prefer me to stop feeding you, I will. I will also take away your books and other items of small luxury I have provided you with. I could make you sleep on the floor on a mat of blankets. I do not like that you are stepping all over my generosity like a doormat. Your childish tantrums are far from entertaining to me, and I especially don't like being called down here like I'm _your_ servant. It would do you some good to remember what humility was, you piece of shit."

He practically spat the last words at her, and in response she spit in his face. Instantly letting go he leapt back and wiped the saliva from his face and glared at her. The anger flashed red in his mind as he quickly drew his wand and pointed it at her. The stupid bitch had been taking far too much advantage of his generosity. She looked at him with wide and fearful eyes (but a smug grin still remained on her face). Anger coursed through her body as well as she dared him,

"Well! Get on with it. Torture me, kill me. I don't give a fuck. What else can I do but sit here and wait?"

She spoke with a slightly mocking tone. His hand trembled as he gathered up the energy and the word formed on his lips, but at the last moment he lowered his wand and barked at her,

"You don't understand, do you? I told you I'm not going to kill you."

She rolled her eyes and snapped, "Oh, how kind of you! You'll just torture me until I don't know which way is left or right, yes?"

He ran a hand down his face and angrily replied, "No! Not until I get what I need from you."

She crossed her arms and sneered, "And that would be?"

"I need to know why you had the sword of Gryffindor, and what Scarhead and Weasel are doing."

Her brown eyes widened at him before laughing,

"Right, like I would tell you that. I'm a muggle born, I'm not an idiot, Malfoy."

"That's funny, you have hardly proved your intelligence level to me."

"I don't need to prove anything to you," she spat.

Frustrated that he'd blown his chance by simply letting himself get angry he ripped up the sleeve of his robe and shoved the arm with the slowly healing marks that'd been caused by the Dark magic of the unbreakable vow into her face and said,  
>"Like I said, you don't understand! If I don't tell him what they're doing I'm going to die."<p>

Her eyes traveled from his arm to his face, then back to his arm. His voice had quivered in uncontrollable fear at the end a little, and that had concerned her a little. Narrowing her gaze she was hardly moved,

"Well good. Maybe dying will be one of the best things you've done in a while, other than turn into a really entertaining ferret."

His face reddened at the reminder of his fourth year, and a muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth over and over again, analyzing that she would much rather let him die than tell him. He had played his only decent card and she'd simply written it off as something good. Still, he was surprised at her lack of compassion and questioned her on it,

"So you're saying you'd rather let me die than tell me?"

"If you're asking whether I'd risk my life and yours for the whole of the wizarding community, then yes. Maybe it'd do you some good to learn sacrifice."

Draco's determination faded with each and every obvious word. She was right, what good would he do alive? And considering she fought for the good guys, there was clearly no way in heaven or hell that she'd even bother to tell him. Still, she looked questioningly at the marks on his arm and traced one (he shivered at the light and strangely soft touch). Her expression softened a little and she asked,

"What are those from?"

Hardly willing to be angry at her anymore he shrugged and said, "The marks from the unbreakable vow."

She was shocked at the news and hissed at him, "_Unbreakable vow_? How stupid are you? Why the hell would you make a-"

"Because, you stupid girl, I didn't have much of a choice!"

"Don't tell me your father put you up to this."

Angry that she had brought his dad into the conversation he snapped at her, "_Don't_ bring my dad into this."

"What," she asked, with an innocently snide tone, "don't mention the man that has made your life seventeen years of shit?"

Not wanting to hear it he slapped her and shouted, "I said don't talk about my father!"

Gripping the side of her face, she struggled to control her emotions before saying, "Get out."

Scarcely in the mood to be ordered around by a prisoner he took a defensive stance and crossed his arms across his chest and dared,

"Get out or what?"

She hadn't expected him to simply root himself there and she slowly lowered her hand from her face before trying to make an excuse for him to get out,

"I'm tired, please leave."

"Again, you haven't given me much of a reason to kindly comply with your wishes."

Hermione realized, suddenly, that he was fishing for a groveling apology. Groaning inwardly at this she wondered exactly how pathetic she'd have to be. She figured she could always get mad at him, but for some reason she wasn't in any mood to poke the dragon in the eye anymore. She'd already caused three flare-ups of his temper and hardly doubted that the fourth one would be worse than the others, especially since he'd just hit her for the first time. Looking at him for a moment she finally slumped her shoulders and realized she had lost this battle. Except, it seemed that her resignation from the fight was what he had been looking for and without question he swept from the room, and when he was finally gone she took a shuddering breath and collapsed onto the bed.

Maybe it would have been better if he'd just gone ahead and killed her.

**A/N: **Bahahaha, got the second chapter of the day up! Through my distractions and ABSOLUTE EXCITEMENT THAT I GOT INTO POTTERMORE EARLY (WTF) I did it. So. Let's talk about Draco...and how stupid he is. Looool. Way to blow it, ass hole. NOT LIKE SHE WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE /that awkward moment when the author talks to the characters...but guess what, I definitely think, what with all I have planned out, that this is turning into a 20 chapter story! WE WILL INDEED MAKE IT PAST THE 12TH CHAPTER, UNLIKE MY ORIGINAL GUESSTIMATION LOOOL. My life. Anyway, enjoy 8D


	9. With fearful trills

CHAPTER NINE

_With fearful trills_

The manor was still, save for the occasional stirring and scurrying of a house elf. He sat alone in the living room, engulfed by a large brown dragon hide armchair, the scales had been magically worn away to leave a smooth leather behind. The blond headed Malfoy boy sunk farther into the cushions as he unintentionally dwelled on the mudblood's harsh words. He had hardly intended for her to know the whole truth, much less learn about it the way she had. Her sharp words rattled around in his brain, poking at all the sore spots that reminded him that he really was just no good.

"_Maybe dying will be one of the best things you've done in a while._"

He scrunched his face and shut his eyes, trying to block out the words, but they just kept coming.

"_It'd do you some good to learn sacrifice._"

Her words were like an unwanted conscience in his head, and no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to think of other things, her damn scrutinizing tone kept sneaking its way in.

"_Don't tell me your father put you up to this._"

No, she had no right to have brought up his late father in any conversation. Her lips were hardly worthy to mention him, and the very fact that she'd thought she had any authority to even think of Lucius Malfoy made his blood boil even though her words were just a tantalizing memory. The unfortunate thing about her comment was that in a way, his dad did have some hand in his situation. As always, things trickled back down to the infamously meddling Lucius. A man Draco had tried his whole life to please but hardly got so much as a 'good job' pat. Every single threat of 'my father will hear about this' had been empty. The last thing the head of the Malfoy family wanted to hear was how whiny his only son had become. The only time his father had ever acted on any complaint that Draco had sent his way was his third year at Hogwarts when that oaf of a man otherwise known as Hagrid had been given a _teaching job_ at the school (of all things a rat like him could get!) and thought that it'd be a good idea to introduce the students on their first day to blood thirsty beasts like hippogriffs. He had a scar on his arm to prove that idiots like Hagrid shouldn't be let within fifty feet of any sort of school. At the thought, he ran his fingers lightly across the puckered skin, a surprisingly lighter color than the rest of his body (if his skin had the ability to do such a thing, perhaps if it got a few shades lighter he'd be transparent). Of course, his thoughts were tugged away from far-off memories of Hogwarts as Hermione's snide voice cut through the still of his mind once more, reminding him of things that he hardly wanted to remember,

"_Maybe dying will be one of the best things you've done in a while._"

Running a hand through disheveled blond locks, Draco began to wonder why he was letting the taunts and truths of a mudblood get to him. It was not like she was someone worth his worry, and yet it seemed that he had started to appreciate what she thought of him.

"_You wouldn't be doing all this shit if you didn't [care], Malfoy!_"

Head-Hermione had an extremely valid point, and it was very hard to ignore her, she was after all the smartest person in the class. Besides, he clearly wouldn't be bothered about a damn thing that pertained to her if he didn't care. If he didn't want to cater to her better interests and general good health, he would have simply let her starve and only keep her alive with rations of sour pumpkin juice and moldy bread. God knows he had plenty to spare since the house elves hardly ate, and while he had her entire world at his finger tips to play with like she was his marionette and he her puppet master, he didn't. He could be torturing her every night simply because he wanted to know that someone else in this world was just as miserable as he was, but he couldn't bring himself to bring the pain that his parents had suffered in their last moments upon anyone, not even someone so deserving of it a Hermione Granger. Yet, she was taking his hospitality for granted. She was ignoring the obvious facts that he could fuck her life up in more ways than it already was if she wanted. If anything, she should be grateful that he hadn't decided to make her even more miserable.

"_It'd do you some good to learn sacrifice,_" head-Hermione repeated.

Growling at the recurring memory he snapped, "Maybe it'd do _you _some good to learn some sacrifice you useless bitch."

When his words sank into the walls around him and left him all alone in silence once more, he realized that he had said that out loud.

_Good job, Draco. You're letting that stupid mudblood drive you crazy._

His words reverberated in his inactive mind and he couldn't help but agree with himself. He had done a lot of letting that stupid girl get into his brain. She was like a beetle, crawling around in there eating away at what was his withering sanity (something that in all due fairness had been waning since his sixth year at Hogwards).

Somehow, even with the constant interruption of attempted mediation by Hermione's stinging words he drifted off into sleep, waking up several hours later when his head slipped off his hand. The surprising jolt was enough to shake him awake. Startling in his chair he looked around the room and eyed the clock. 9 am. It had been a whole day since that upsetting argument with his prisoner. Unfortunately, the second he thought that her words had stopped rooting around in his brain, another sharp reply barked at him in the silence,

"_Maybe dying will be one of the best things you've done in a while._"

Gripping his hair he stood up and shouted into the silence, "Alright, I get it! I'm a useless piece of shit and I deserve to die because of my life choices, you don't have to rub it in my face!"

It was official: that stupid muggle born girl had crawled underneath his skin and was pouring salt in all of the wounds that had hardly healed over. Draco had spent so many years building up an impassable wall of 'not going to give a fuck' emotions, and somehow in one short month this stupid mudblood had torn down all of that hard work and was switching wires around and causing bedlam in his already confused psyche. How he had managed to let her do it, he wasn't even sure. He had always been so guarded, so careful around people and he had figured his façade to be foolproof, but apparently it wasn't mudblood proof. He paced the length of the sitting room for a little bit, trying to decide what he was going to do. At first he argued that he just needed to ignore her, forget that she even existed –but that wouldn't work. If he wanted to survive he would have to go through with his vow (which, on another thought, is quite ironic considering she'd told him that sacrificing himself might be a good thing, she hardly knew the whole story behind that). Then, he argued that maybe her voice would stop echoing in his head if he just went and asked her why she'd said such things about him. His inner Malfoy pride twisted and turned; conflicted on what to do.

Hermione looked up from one of the books she was re-reading at the sound of movement at the archway of the room. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the last person on the earth that she'd like to see. Studying him for a moment she took note that he was wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday, his blond locks were tousled and he looked like he had hardly gotten any sleep. Malfoy was hardly able to stand still; he fidgeted in place, as if uncomfortable to be under her scrutinizing gaze. Pursing her lips at him she went to ask him a question before he asked in a rushed voice,

"Did you really mean what you said?"

Confused at his question she slowly closed the book and stared at him for a moment. It took her a moment to realize what was happening. Everything that she'd said yesterday was getting to him. Finally it all made sense; his messy appearance, the dark circles under his eyes, his twitchy movements. She had finally managed to bother the Slytherin prince! If she were in any other situation she'd probably take the time to gloat and poke at his wounded ego, but as he'd demonstrated several times over the course of her imprisonment he could physically hurt her whenever he wanted and hardly had any conviction in doing so, and judging by his agitated appearance she didn't doubt for a second that he'd bring her within an inch of her life if she said the wrong thing. Finally, after a bit of silence she coyly asked (well, she was most certainly going to try to be as smug as possible without pissing him off),

"Well, I tend to mean everything I say."

He looked at her and sighed heavily,

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean the other stuff…the…stuff you said last night."

"Oh. I see what's going on here. You're worried that I really want you to die, right?"

His silence told Hermione everything she needed to know. Smirking before giving him a serious look she said,

"Maybe I was serious, maybe I wasn't."

That didn't seem to sit too well and he ran a frustrated and shaking hand through his blond hair,

"Stop it, Granger, seriously, stop it!"

She could spot a nervous breakdown from a country away, and the signs of his distress were more than obvious. Sighing heavily she scooted over on her bed and reluctantly patted the empty spot beside her saying,

"Come here."

Malfoy simply stood rooted in his spot, as if worried that if he got any closer to her she'd change him completely. Merling, what the hell was wrong with him? Tilting her head to the side, her tangled hair fell down over her shoulder as she spoke in a slightly more demanding voice,

"I said come here, Draco."

Numbly, he obeyed. His heart was racing and his breathing coming in short gasps. He felt like he couldn't get a deep enough breath. Finally he plopped down next to Hermione and she studied him up close. The few times they'd been this close he was either threatening her or simply doing it to be annoying. She had hardly had any time to actually study him. Raking her brown eyes over his features she noted that he looked much older than he should be. His cheeks were slightly sunken in which gave his angled face even more points to it (if that was even possible), where smooth skin should be, wrinkles had formed on his forehead, dark circles gave his eyes the look of a raccoon; except he was hardly the cute furry little bandit and trash destroyer that most raccoons were generally stereotyped as. Truly, she felt bad for him, while she was not familiar with the Dark magic that was an unbreakable vow, she knew (just like anyone else) that there was no way out of a vow. If there was a way that they could both be happy she'd do it, but she was no longer thinking about him or herself, she was thinking about the whole of the wizarding community –there was no way she was going to sacrifice the ensured happiness of hundreds of witches and wizards just to please Draco Malfoy. But, that did mean she didn't have to be convicted over her choice. Finally she asked,

"You lost sleep over what I said, didn't you?"

His desperate grey-eyed gaze told her all she needed to know. In an act of attempted friendship (because everyone, even someone who hated her simply for who her parents were, deserved an understanding person with a listening ear to chat off) she patted the top of his thigh and said,

"You have to understand, I'm not doing it to personally victimize you. I am not telling you because you are one miserable person who's made an entire lifetime of shitty choices and I will _not_ risk the happiness of witches and wizards who deserve a chance. People who have hardly had any opportunity to fuck up their life as much as you've fucked yours up."

Draco gave her a withering look and hardly had the voice to reply,

"So you're saying that I'm a lost cause?"

She sighed sadly and shrugged and said, "Unfortunately…yes."

There was something in his eyes, some sort of light that went out that made something in her chest hurt. She hadn't ever injured anyone in such a way before and she wondered how bullies like Malfoy could have done it for so long. He rested his elbows on the tops of his thighs and put his head in his hands, shaking his head back and forth,

"I don't even know why the fuck I'm trying."

Hermione simply sat there, quite unsure of what to do. She had never seen Malfoy like this (she'd dealt with several female friends in such a distressed state, but Draco was hardly someone she'd expected to see such an outpouring of emotion from). Hesitant, she placed a hand on his shoulder and said,

"Well, you're a Slytherin, right? So that means you're persistent…ambitious…"

"I know what traits my house are, Granger."

"I was just trying to help-"

"If you wanted to help you'd just fucking tell me what Potter and Weasely are up to."

"We've already discussed why I can't do that."

He jumped away from her touch and stood up, his gaze empty but strangely alive with fire,

"Why? Why not! Are you ok that you're going to let me die for your stupid fucking morals?"

"No, Draco…I'm…I'm not, I really wished there was some way I could help you without compromising their mission. But there isn't. I wouldn't let…"

She stopped as her voice went out, hardly appreciating the cliffhanger he shouted at her,

"What?"

Swallowing hard she continued on in a timid whisper, "I wouldn't let you die if there was another way…"

It was like she'd stuck a needle in a balloon, Draco deflated quickly. His shoulders slumped and he sank back down onto her bed and went back to holding his face in his hands. She didn't quite realize what was happening until she heard him take a quiet, shuddering sob. Her over-sized heart cracked right down the middle. Sure, he was someone she had learned to dislike his general existence, but he hardly deserved to be handed a death sentence like he did, he was so young –just a month older than her. She knew that there was something deeper going on, but she didn't dare ask. Instead she just sat there in silence, simply providing him the comfort that she knew anyone in his position would want (even if it came from someone he had been taught to hate like a pit bull was taught to fight). She wasn't sure how long they sat there in silence before Malfoy asked her a very quiet, pathetic question,

"You hate me, don't you?"

Clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth she shook her head slowly, "No, I don't _hate_ you, Draco. I'm just disappointed in the choices you've made. I often wonder how someone like you, someone with so many connections and money could have fallen down such a wrong path. So, I don't hate you, I'm disappointed."

He looked at her and said, "Jesus, being disappointed is worse than hating. Are you sure you just can't hate me?"

"No. It wouldn't be fair."

He laughed bitterly at the irony of her statement. Hermione's breath caught in her throat when she suddenly realized how close their faces were. When he was having his mental breakdown, she had leaned in closer and had been resting her side on his. Now their faces were hardly inches apart, and his breath hit her skin, sending chills down her spine. Resisting the urge to shiver and suppressing the thoughts of what it'd be like to kiss him she scooted away from him a few inches, trying to force down the thoughts that should never have entered her head in the first place. Swallowing she quietly asked,

"A-are you feeling better?"

Without warning he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. She hardly had time to react before he pulled away, a smirk replacing the painful frown that'd been there just a few moments before (but the smug look was hardly one that she'd seen so many times in the last few weeks, and she knew there was still something wrong). She sat there in shock as he explained,

"I could see it in your eyes. You were wondering what it would be like. Well, now you know."

Suddenly he stood up and went to exit, leaving a very shocked and very confused Hermione sitting on the bed with a stunned expression on her face. He turned to her and said,

"You know who to call if you change your mind about telling me what I need to know."

And with that he was gone –and she was thankful. He had not left a moment too soon, because the moment he was out of sight her resolve faded away and several confused emotions flooded her body. Shocked, she touched her lips and tried to wipe away the few tears that escaped her glazed eyes. Not even realizing it, she replied to his statement far too late,

"I won't be changing my mind…"

**A/N: **Holy crap, I was _so_ unmotivated to write today after I lost a good portion of this chapter when my computer froze (I cried, needless to say). It's sort of a filler chapter...kind of...you know. It sets up a future budding romance...FINALLY lol. LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID, HERMIONE. YOU MADE DRACO CRY. What a bitch. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter and reviews are greatly welcomed!


	10. Of the things unknown

CHAPTER TEN

_Of the things unknown_

Hermione had never been so confused in her life.

The fleeting fantasy of kissing him had come to life right before her eyes, like something out of a sweet dream (or a terrible nightmare depending on who was asked about the situation). She had hardly kissed anyone that wasn't family, generally she was far too busy keeping Ron and Harry out of serious trouble, and staying on top of her classes just so she could prove to everyone that she was very worthy of being at Hogwarts to worry about dating and to groom her silly girl feelings (not that she didn't have them, she just permitted herself to look past them and shoved them off to the side like unwanted, hideous orphans). The truth about the entire 'dating' situation was a lot simpler than one would think: she was simply afraid that she wouldn't be good enough for someone. She had studied relationships from afar and had always wondered how someone could look past such major flaws in a person's character to fall in love with the good things? She had experienced mild infatuations, and it'd be a lie to say that she didn't fancy Ron, but there was something strange about Malfoy that tickled her stomach and brought a brand new fire to her soul.

So many questions ran through her racing mind, but the most prevalent one was why the hell he'd done it in the first place? Did he honestly think that if he kissed her she'd suddenly open up her lips (and legs) to him and let him in? If that was what he thought would come of his extremely confusing action, he was sorely mistaken. After he left, she waited for the tears to stop then decided to dedicate the rest of her evening perplexed over his out of character actions. However, the more she thought about it, the more distressed she became with herself; especially when she realized that a small part of her wanted him to do it again. The very thought made her stomach turn and years of built up dislike towards him screamed at her and told her that there was nothing about him that she could trust. But then there was a very soft voice in the back of her head that pointed out all the things about him that she was very aware of, but refused to address.

Away from the expectations of his Slytherin housemates and the oppression of his parents, he had proven himself to be a fairly charming boy. Yes, he infuriated her –it seemed like every single action he made was done simply to piss her off, but she was strangely attracted to him. He was obviously being kind to her, if he had wanted her to be miserable he wouldn't have continually been going out of his way almost every day to make sure she got meals, had some form of entertainment, talked to her every now and then, and she could hardly forget that he'd let her wash off the grime of several months of traveling and one very bad night off of her. Yes, she was trapped at the manor with hardly a hope of any way out, but the entire situation could be worse. The more sensible half of her conscience reminded her of all the cruel names he'd called her, all of the bad choices he'd made in his short lifetime, and how Dumbledore's assassination could be easily pinned on his shoulders. Then there was her emotional side, pointing out how even though she tried to pin him as an emotionless git with hardly a care in the world, she couldn't forget that he'd actually _cried_ in front of her. He had proven that there was more to him then that single-layer bullying shit. Needless to say, the subject was tiresome, and the last thought that came to her mind before she fell asleep was how surprisingly soft his lips had been.

Draco, on the other hand, hardly slept at all.

How could he have done something like that? He paced his room for several hours, reliving the moment that led up to the kiss as much as he could possibly stand. He asked his empty room why he'd done it, why he'd let himself get away with something so stupid. What had he been thinking? And what about that stupid, "_You know who to call if you change your mind about telling me what I need to know_," shit? Why the fuck would she call him? And more importantly, she'd already told him very adamantly that she would not be risking the whole of the wizarding world just for his silly little life, thus meaning that there had been no need for him to say that. In the greater scheme of things, he was a disposable pawn (nothing more and nothing less). So then, if he knew that, why did he kiss her? Was he convinced that if he showed affection she'd fall right into his arms and be putty in his hands?

Oh, his father was probably rolling over in his grave at the very thought!

After he'd left her room and came to his senses, he'd gone straight for the bathroom to scrub her tastelessness off of his lips for a few hours. And even then he could still feel her plump skin against his own. He wanted to hex his lips off, he wanted new ones. He didn't want ones that'd gone and touched filthy mudblood lips. Jesus Christ, what if his friends found out? What if _Bellatrix_ found out? He'd be promptly deemed a blood traitor and unbreakable vow to the Dark Lord or not, he'd be useless to their cause and they'd have no more need of his assistance and he would no longer have any time to borrow, his time hare would be up. No, he had decided that no matter what happened no one would know what he had done with the muggle born prisoner. At one point he quit his frantic pacing and fell face down onto his bed; pressing his pale, hollow-cheeked face into his pillow Draco tried his best to shut out all the thoughts that threatened to suffocate him. Eventually his eyelids began to grow heavy, and a fleeting thought entered his mind: he had always expected that kissing a mudblood would leave him with an aftertaste of something likable to licking dirt, but she hadn't tasted like anything.

When morning arrived (or at least, Hermione's perceived morning), she was almost shocked to see a plate full of fruit and a glass of milk waiting for her on the table. Suspicion slowly worked its way through her actions as she cautiously approached the table. Previously, she'd been getting dinner meals and could hardly fathom why all of the sudden Draco would have her eating breakfast –not that she minded the switch because she had honestly grown tired of the dinner meals. However, the sudden changeup was extremely close to their last argument and she wasn't sure whether he put something in it or not. Thus, to maintain her secrets, she simply skipped out on the food, even though as she analyzed a poem by Emily Dickinson her stomach grumbled quite loudly in protest. Not far into her studies she felt a pair of eyes watching her. She didn't need to look up to know who had come to visit, and she hardly wanted to meet his gaze; she believed that if she did, she would more than likely blush.

Draco took notice that she had not eaten her breakfast. Crossing his arms he demanded,

"Why have you not eaten breakfast?"

He wanted her to look up, he wanted to see if she was just as conflicted as he was, but instead she kept her head bent and her face out of his sight and dully replied,

"What, are you worried you're not going to get your one chance to have me spill out all my secrets because this is the meal you've finally decided to spike?"

Her suspicion drove him mad. If he was going to drug her, he would have done it a long time ago. Gritting his teeth he worked on restraining his frustration and said,

"No, you stupid mudblood, I have simply decided to give you two meals a day."

At this, she finally looked up (and to her surprise of her control she didn't blush). She stared at him curiously and said,

"Oh, and why is that?"

He shrugged and tartly replied, "I don't know, I just figured that _maybe_ you'd like some more food. You're beginning to look like skin and bones anyway."

She frowned at this and snidely bit back, "Well, you hardly look like a beauty queen yourself."

Draco sneered at her reply, not exactly in the mood to hear it from the muggle born about how bad he looked (it was all her fault anyway!). A silence fell between them and suddenly Hermione asked him a question he had been praying she wouldn't have the balls to ask,

"Why did you kiss me, Malfoy?"

Slightly startled, he looked at her for a long moment then reigned in his emotions and apathetically shrugged,

"I don't know."

Apparently that was not the answer she was looking for. She jumped up from her bed and stalked over to the entryway, fire burning in her eyes as she lifted her chin,

"That's a bull shit answer, Malfoy. No one does shit just because, not even you."

Growling at her he said, "What, are you saying that I am incapable of absolute spontaneity? That there's no possible way I could ever do things on a whim and that not even I would know why I did them?"

She shrugged and threw her hands up wildly, "No, because to be spontaneous someone has to have a bit more spirit in them! I'm just saying that you had a reason, and I want you to know that whatever reason that was, it's probably a stupid one."

Why was it he always managed to get her yelling? Draco closed his eyes and rubbed his temples before honestly saying, "I have no idea why I did it, ok?"

"I don't believe you."

"Fine, don't believe me. I hardly value your opinions or beliefs anyway, so your lack of approval of my answer will not cause me to lose sleep at night."

"Well, I find that hard to believe because by the looks of you, you've hardly slept."

"Maybe I have intermittent insomnia; generally triggered by pain in the ass mudbloods like you!"

"That is such a lie, you piece of shit! You kissed me for a reason and now you're conf-"

Hermione was cut off mid sentence when he swooped down on her and grabbed her face. On autopilot, he pressed his lips against hers for the second time in his life. Her entire body went rigid with shock. Letting go he stepped back and smirked at the deer-in-the-headlights look that she was giving him and shouted,

"Kisses are nothing! Affection is nothing, especially anything I feel and demonstrate towards you!"

Really, he was trying to remind himself of that, but it was advantageous for him to try to convince her of the same thing as well (even though he himself was hardly buying it). Of course, by the looks of it, he had said the wrong thing, because a trail of tears traced the crease of her nose and dripped off her chin onto the floor. Running a hand through his hair he glared at her,

"Bloody hell, what?"

"You…you don't care about me?"

Ah, salt in the wound. Inner-Draco grinned that he'd finally found something to beat her up over (she deserved it, especially with all the sleep she'd been making him lose),

"As little as you care about my life."

"But that's d-different!"

"Bull shit, it's no different! If you cared, you'd tell me what I need to know."

She made a choking sobbing noise and brought a hand up to her eyes to try to wipe away the tears. As he always did when he was in close quarters with a crying female, Draco began to shift uncomfortably as Hermione stuttered on,  
>"T-that's hardly the c-case, M-Malfoy, and you know it! I told you that m-my not telling you wasn't p-personal!"<p>

"Whatever! And me kissing you isn't personal!"

When she tried to speak again, nothing came out but a quiet wail. And it was at that moment that Draco decided he had had enough of her and her mind-games, she was a liar, he knew it. She was simply not telling him because she hated him. He could hardly begin to grasp that for once, this wasn't about him. Angrily retreating from her room as he stormed down the hallway he called to her back over his shoulder, his voice echoing in the tight space,

"You are truly nothing, Hermione Granger. Just remember that!"

Numbed by his actions and words, Hermione sunk to the ground and for what felt like the millionth time in her life, allowed herself to cry over Draco Malfoy.

**A/N: **As I continue to slow down on updating this story Dx Actually, I was busy for a good portion of today (just couldn't escape those errands!). I'm hoping that I'll continue my evening motivation streak long enough to also get chapter eleven up~ I must admit, this chapter most certainly isn't my _favorite_, but meh. IT'LL DO. As always, reviews are very welcomed!


	11. But longed for still

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_But longed for still_

She hadn't even been trying, and she was changing him.

At least, that's what Draco was beginning to believe. Never in his short six years at Hogwarts would he have fathomed locking lips with that Gryffindor disaster that everyone was so convinced was the brightest girl of their class. Not once would he have thought twice about whether it was right or wrong if someone told him that he would get to torture her endlessly until she told him all of her secrets. Then, just one short month of having her at his mercy, she continually proved to him time and time again that he was changing. To be honest, it scared him. He had known one way and one way only for so long that his rock he'd stood upon was suddenly turning into sand, and the house of Dracoisms that he'd built on that rock were slowly sinking into nothingness. Soon, he'd be weathered back down to a raw nub of clean slate, and he'd have to re-write himself all over again. More than anything in the world, Draco wanted her out of his house. Unfortunately, she was his lifeline, and he knew the second she left, was let go, or escaped he'd be dead. And like the selfish person he still was, he was going to keep her there as long as he could before the Dark Lord started to notice that no progress was being made.

As blasphemous as it seemed, Draco Malfoy simply hoped that Voldemort would be destroyed before that ever became an issue. Then again, his problems would be solved, well partially solved, if he just got the mudblood to open up about what she knew Weasel and Pothead were doing. Sure, Granger had made it clear that she was never going to tell him because she had the future of the entire wizarding world in her best interests, but even past the chafed layers of scrubbed reform, Draco was still self-centered, he had one person in the world to look after now with his parent's untimely departure and that was capital m-e. If anything, the sudden realization that he was indeed changing (specifically his outlook on mudbloods and blood-traitors and what not) had only strengthened his snarky egotistical attitude. Mostly because the change made him feel exposed, and vulnerability was hardly a good survival tactic for anyone trying to make it.

They say that war has a funny way of changing people, and suddenly Draco was beginning to understand why.

Nightmares sent bolts of lightning coursing through Hermione's veins. There was a green flash of light then she was sitting upright in bed, sweat beading off her brow. Swinging her legs over the side of the mattress, she relished the feeling of the cool tile beneath her feet. While she had been spending a great deal of thinking time on Ron and Harry, this had been the first time she'd suffered any sort of night terrors from her worries. Sleep left her body unwillingly and heavy limbs slowly came to life as she grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders and started to walk semi-frantic laps around the quiet room. The dream had been one about Harry and Ron running into Voldemort on their travels; they didn't even stand a chance against the dark wizard. She had felt fear as they might have, hopelessness as they might, and defiance in her last moments before her dream shook her awake. It had been a while since she'd truly wondered what the boys were up to (her mind had been hopelessly preoccupied about the strange behaviors of a certain blond ferret). The distress made her feel sick to her stomach and as she paced she suddenly realized that a new plate of breakfast had been set on the table where her empty dinner plate had been. At the sight of the fresh bowl of fruit, she felt extremely nauseous. Dizzy, she crawled over to one of the corners and slid down the wall. Holding her heavy head in her hands she took several shuddering breaths.

It bothered her deeply to know that Ron and Harry were out there (hopefully looking for horcruxes and not devising a plan to get her free) on their own. While she knew that her boys could take care of themselves, she'd acted as the group's brain for several years –call it her ego or simply call it wanting the job to get done, but for whatever reason it was distressing her to think that the Golden Trio was sans their brain. What good was a body of anything without a brain? Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she tried to take deeper breaths and to count backwards from ten, but what she really wanted was someone to simply sit beside her and tell her that it'd be ok. She wanted someone's arms to crawl into; she wanted a shoulder to cry on. Unfortunately, she had none of that and the crook of her left arm would have to do. She wasn't sure how long she sat like that, but she hardly even looked up when she felt someone sit down beside her. Her company provided her a bit of silence before asking in a familiar drawl,

"Don't tell me…you're crying because you have finally seen the light and don't want me to die?"

Hermione hardly had the desire to reply to his dumb ass, snarky question. Instead she just meekly shook her head and continued to hide her face behind a curtain of slightly tangled brown hair. She felt Malfoy shift beside her, as if getting ready for the long haul. She wanted to yell at him, she wanted to tell him how horrible he was for doing this to her. She wanted to tell him to go away, she didn't even want him to be in the same house as her (not that she had a choice). She wanted to tell him that she hated him, but try as she might, she could hardly gather up the willpower to do any of those things.

Draco was hardly used to anyone crying, and it was strange to see her like this. She had seemed like such a strong young woman, and that was part of what made poking at her sore spots so fun, she flared up in a way that most people wouldn't, when others were on the verge of backing down, she was grabbing another weapon to throw. It was almost degrading to see her so low. Sighing he asked,

"But seriously, why are you crying?"

At his question she finally life her head. Troubled brown eyes met his concerned steel ones and he suddenly knew exactly who she was crying over. In a way, he was jealous that she had such a deep affection for her friends and he admired her loyalty. In a way, he wished that the tears she was shedding were for him (if only just a little). Unable to keep a snide tone from his voice he said,

"Oh, I see. It's Potter and Weasely, then. What'd they do? Get blown up?"

"It's not funny, Malfoy."

"Really? To me it is. I find it so deeply entertaining that-"

"I said it's not funny!"

He stared at her for a moment and quietly replied, "Ok…"

They sat there in silence, with Draco wondering how he could use this to his advantage, and Hermione occasionally sniffling loudly or hiccupping. Figuring that maybe if he showed just a little more compassion to prove to her that he had some latent humanity left, she'd be willing to share her secrets with him,

"So…do you want to talk about it?"

Hermione gave him a hopeless look before bitterly saying, "What is there to talk about? Ron and Harry are probably wandering around lost by now and I'm stuck here, with _you_."

"You say it like you had a choice."

"I wish I did!"

"Please, we don't get to control everything in our lives. I think your problem is that you need to let go a little."

Suddenly, without warning Hermione flung her arms around him and buried her face into his shoulder, letting out a choking couple of sobs. Utterly confused, he went to push her off, but remembered his plan and simply awkwardly patted her back, letting her cry and babble in a mostly incoherent manner,

"I should be out there….I should be with them, they need me, you know? I mean, I trust Harry to get through anything, but they're hardly the brightest…luck won't get them very far…"

In between choked sobs, Draco was hardly able to make out what she was saying, but he managed to decipher her emotional code and did his best to play the part of being concerned,

"Well, I guess you'll just have to…I don't know, hope they don't die without you there?"

She pulled away from him, horror on her face,

"You just don't get it, do you?"

"What?"  
>"I can hear your mocking tone, Malfoy."<p>

"Well, I wasn't trying to be mocking…"

Blinking at him, she rubbed her eyes she muttered a 'sorry' and slowly stood up to walk back to her bed. No longer being held down by a slightly hysterical Gryffindor know it all, Draco stood up and stalked over to the entrance of the Falling down on the lumpy mattress she laid there in silence for a long while, and Draco simply waited. Finally, she asked a question he didn't expect to hear,

"Can you promise me one thing? That you'll change your view from dying because I wouldn't tell you and therefore you couldn't complete your vow to sacrificing yourself for the whole of the wizarding community?"

It was a very strange request. He eyed her still form for a moment before sighing slightly angrily and shrugged,

"Yeah, what the fuck ever. I'll _sacrifice_ myself."

As he went to leave, he heard her utter a quiet 'thank you' behind his back. He wanted to say 'you're welcome', but he had hardly meant that he would promise to sacrifice himself. Merlin, what was he getting himself into?

**A/N:** AAAHH. SHITTY SHORT CHAPTER, JESUS CHRIST I AM SO SORRY. But I fell behind on my updating quota, and I _had_ to get this chapter out. And really, even if I wasn't being all annoying about well-timed updates, this would have been a short chapter anyway. It was simply a chapter for me to show how the two are starting to ~slightly~ like each other...that and I hardly wanted to pass up the chance for Draco to awkwardly hold Hermione as she cried over her friends. I'm a sucker for awkward moments. ANYWAY, I love to hear feedback, so review, review, review!


	12. Till the current ends

CHAPTER TWELVE

_Till the current ends_

If he didn't know better, he'd say that this stupid little mudblood was making a right fool out of him. One minute he was swearing against ever associating with such a lowly creature, the next he was kissing one simply because he felt like it and telling her he'd sacrifice himself for the greater good upon her request. He'd once stood as the top of the food chain at Hogwarts, and suddenly he'd fallen so far from grace that he found himself flouncing around with caged muggle borns, forced to do her wrong by a vow on the threat of death. Who was he? What was he? Was he still that king that sat on the throne of other people's misery at his expense? Or was he the vulnerable little boy that he had proved himself to be in the last few weeks? To be honest, Draco wasn't even sure anymore. Part of him wished he was that kid that could do no wrong, he wanted to be the one on the top of the ladder –and sometimes he was. Then there was that part of him that was still wounded, bleeding and bruised, from the death of his parents. He was a five year old boy with a cut on his knee and he wanted his mother to swoop down on him and make it better. He was alone, and he was looking for the closest person that had some sort of heart in their chest that beat red hot emotion, maybe not for him –but all that mattered was if it was there or not. Unfortunately, the closest person that could fill such a role was the one and only Hermione Granger.

Draco woke up with a familiar sharp pain on his left arm. That old familiar feeling of dread boiled up in his stomach and made him dizzy. He had been trying to forget that the Dark Lord had told him he was coming to check up on progress; in fact he'd been trying to do anything he could to push the fact out of his mind. Most Death Eaters would shit their pants, cut off their right arm and give up their first born to ensure that their most beloved master was going to hold meetings in their more than gracious home without their permission. Draco was the absolute opposite of that. The thought of one of the least emotionally stable men in the world in the room with him was much too close, in fact, being in the same country as that man terrified him. He'd seen the extent of his temper tantrums and knew how short Lord Voldemort's moral battles were. He also knew that the Dark Lord would not be pleased with his lack of development on his vow and would not tolerate any excuse he came up with. In a way, he felt like the end of his life was going to happen today and believe it or not, he was not quite ready to go (as empty and meaningless as his life was now).

The funny, stressful thing about being the chosen meeting place host was that it seemed that the meeting times were kept from him, and he was forced to spend the entire day waiting in worry, scared to go to the bathroom for fear that the whole inner circle would show up in the middle of a bowel movement. Instead, he sat in tense anticipation in the living room, twitching and jumping at the slightest noise. While his thoughts were on whether or not he should write up a will and epitaph for himself, he was actually grateful for the distraction from his dirty mudblood living against her will in one of the rooms in the manor. Ever hour was spent looking at the clock, counting the minutes and seconds that ticked by. At one point, he fell asleep only to be shaken awake by a very startled Pearl telling him that the strange man that terrified her and a few other people in cloaks had shown up in the dining room. Adrenaline and fear shot through his veins like ice, leaping to his feet he practically sprinted into the dining room only to be greeted by a round of applause and a familiar ice cold voice hissing at all of them in a tone that if Draco didn't know better was full of pride,

"And there's our most honored guest, come, Draco, come!"

To his horror, the Dark Lord was motioning to a seat at his right side that was generally saved for his beloved Bellatrix (who now sat several seats away from him looking like she was on the verge of tears and hexing every single person in the room). His breath caught in his throat and he stiffly moved towards where Lord Voldemort was motioning for him to sit. The second he sat down, he wished he hadn't, because the Dark Lord put a hand on his shoulder and announced,

"Today, my dear friends, is the day that our young Draco helps us further in the war and lead to the immediate death of Harry Potter."

Draco was appreciative that everyone was busy fawning over their resurrected master to notice that he was shaking in his chair, and that he could hardly sit still. He felt sick to his stomach, he wanted to go curl up in his parents' bed and just hope that everything disappeared. He didn't want to be here, in fact, he'd take talking to that emaciated mudblood than this. Thankfully, after broadcasting the big news that Draco would (not) be revealing when the Dark Lord asked him to, the subject went on to how things were at the ministry, how things were at Hogwarts and other unimportant things that Draco never listened to. He was grateful that the fifteen seconds of fame had turned upon other people as the spotlight of their master's needs was pointed at them. He was left alone in his terrified misery, wondering what would happen to him, what would happen to the manor, what would happen to Granger.

Strangely enough, he didn't want her to die the second he did, he didn't want anyone going down to where she was being held prisoner and have her killed because she was no good to anyone, or for someone like Bellatrix to torture her into insanity in an attempt to get from her what they wanted. A protective fire burned his stomach at the thought of what would happen to her. In a way, she was like his pet that no one wanted, but a pet that he loved dearly because she seemed to be the only thing in the world that listened to him when he whined. That, and when he did whine she had nowhere to run. Looking down at his hands, he felt a pair of eyes watching him, uncomfortable under the suspected scrutiny he looked up to meet the burning glare of Bellatrix. Giving her a questioning look she simply lifted her chin and changed her gaze to one that said 'I know that you have nothing'.

Granted, it didn't take the brightest person in the world to notice that Draco didn't know a single thing that the Dark Lord thought he knew, but the fact that Bellatrix caught on was strangely unsettling. Sitting there in misery and agonizing anticipation, the shrill voice of his aunt cut through the conversation when she said,

"My Lord, I think these topics are quite dull, I really think we should hear what Draco has to say."

Draco looked up to glare at his aunt; she shot him a very smug look and Lord Voldemort stopped whatever he had been discussing with the others and clasped his long-fingered hands together,

"Yes, what a good idea. I am very excited to hear what my young protégé has to tell me."

He then turned and stared down the young Death Eater and gave him a strangely cruel smile (like he too knew that Draco hadn't done shit) and said,

"You remembered our deal, right? I hope you've had enough time to make progress on it."

His mouth went dry and his throat closed up. The time had come. He had been trying to rehears what he was going to say the whole time, but now that his moment of truth and death had arrived, he was absolutely speechless. The entire table had their eyes set upon him, all just as equally judging as Bellatrix. Taking a deep breath he willed him to squeak out a feeble excuse,

"Sh-she has been really hard to talk to, she refuses to even acknowledge-"

At that point, Bellatrix leapt up from her seat and pointed a long finger at him and screeched,

"You see, my Lord? You said that he could do it, but he couldn't even get a pathetic little mudblood to squeal her every inner secret!"

Lord Voldemort looked away from Draco and to his most loyal servant to coo at her like he would a baby,

"Come now, Bellatrix. You didn't even let the boy finish, how do you know he didn't get what I need, right Draco?"

With his neck on the chopping block, Draco shook his head slightly and whispered,

"No, I didn't."

The silence that followed was almost enough to kill him; he looked away quickly from those snake eyes like suddenly Voldemort had turned into a basilisk or worse, Medusa. However, even without looking at him he could feel the gaze burning through a layer of blond hair to scorch a hole in his skull all the way to his brain. There was no way to know how long the silence lasted, but finally (and shockingly) the Dark Lord waved his hand and looked at Bellatrix and said with a sinister edge to his voice,

"Well then, my dear. It looks like you're going to have to help our young Draco with his task."

If Draco thought that the fear earlier was bad, but the dread that sizzled like acid in his stomach was much, much worse. He knew exactly what Bellatrix 'helping' him meant. He suddenly didn't want the meeting to end; he knew the longer it carried on the longer he could…

Silly, stupid, useless, pointless Draco.

Hermione Granger was an enemy; it was because of her and her god damn friends that he was in this in the first place. She hardly deserved his compassion and worry, and yet he couldn't help but fret. In the month he'd been given with her, he felt like finally he had a friend in the world. Granted she probably still wanted to watch crows scratch his eyes out, but there had been times when she had proved that she too enjoyed his company (more than likely through force than first choice, but it didn't matter to Draco). And now, he was being faced with another cross road and he was going to be forced down the road he didn't want to go down. He was as powerless as an ant in an ocean, so many fish out to get him and all he had as a weapon was his pinchers surrounded by shark teeth.

Unfortunately, the rest of the meeting didn't last very long and as everyone left, Draco began to count down to the end. Looking around, he noticed that suddenly he was alone with Bellatrix, and she was grinning at him in a unsettling manner. Drawing her wand and picking at the tip she barked,

"Go get her, Draco."

He was frozen in spot; he could hardly believe what was happening. He had honestly been hoping that all of this was a bad dream, but after biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood several times he realized that there was no waking up from this living nightmare. Timidly, he shook his head. He couldn't lead the cow to slaughter like that, he couldn't just willingly look into her eyes and see that fear and know what she was dreading. Bellatrix, however, was not going to have any of this, clicking her tongue to the roof of her mouth she stalked over to Draco, trailing the tip of her wand beneath his chin. Shuddering from the icy feeling of the wood against his skin he averted his eyes from her gaze as she leaned in close to growl at him between clenched teeth,

"I said: go get her, Draco."

When he wouldn't look at her she grabbed his face and forced him to do so, he felt like he was staring into a pit of soullessness. Swallowing he found a little voice and shakily said,

"No."

"I'm sorry, did you just tell Auntie Bella 'no'?"

"Yes, _Auntie Bella_, I did. I said no. You're not doing this. I can handle this."

She tilted her head back to laugh a shrill laugh then shouted,

"Handle this? Draco, you stupid little boy. You couldn't even handle killing a decrepit old man."

"But I can handle a classmate."

"Obviously you can't. Now, go get her."

"I'm not going to get her, you go get her."

"Fine."

Bellatrix turned and stalked off down the hallway, Draco simply stood there completely paralyzed by what was happening. _How_ was this happening? Without thinking, he moved to one of the empty chairs and slowly sank down in it. How was he letting this happen again? He was going to have to watch someone he'd grown semi-close to get tortured, and there was nothing he could do about it.

To say she was surprised when the black haired witch showed up in her would be a bit of an understatement. Hermione was terrified, bewildered, but hardly confused. She knew that this was coming. Ever since Malfoy told her what he was up to and since she had flat out refused to tell him, she knew that something bad like this was going to happen. The only question that burned in her mind as she let Bellatrix drag her down the hallway was what was going to happen? Her mind could only fathom so many things, but she was fairly certain she would not like any of it. As she was brought into the dining room, she spotted a familiar blond haired boy sitting at the table, and suddenly it all made sense. He'd gone back on his promise. He had said that he wouldn't bother her about it, he had said he would sacrifice himself for what she stood for. She should have known he was just going to go back on it, she should have known. Ripping out of Bellatrix's grip she ran at him yelling,

"You! You evil, loathsome-"

She was stopped and crumpled to the ground at the feeling that ever muscle, ever bone, every hair was being slowly ripped out of her. Involuntarily, she let out an agonizing screech that filled the entire room. Before she knew it, the pain was over and Bellatrix was kneeling on her chest demanding to know what they had been up to. Unable to speak she simply shook her head and braced herself for another wave of pain, which came just as she expected, but with far more intensity than the first time.

The process repeated itself many times, each time Bellatrix yelled 'crucio!' Hermione's screams grew louder. Draco could hardly watch, he sat there with his head pressed down on the hard wood of the table and his fingers stuffed in his ears. As much as he didn't want to be there he could hardly get the will to leave. Images of the night of his parents' death kept flashing through his mind like a never ending horror movie. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't block out the images, and it wouldn't matter if he shoved his fingers all the way to his brain, he would still hear Granger's shrieks. He wasn't sure how long he forced himself to sit there, but everything went quiet and he took his hands away from his face and looked up only to see Bellatrix striding away from a whimpering Hermione and turned around sharply. Draco could see the curse forming on her lips and in a split second he pulled out his own wand and disarmed her, his paralysis broken as he strode over to his aunt,

"He said to get answers from her, not to kill her."

Bellatrix was flustered, furious that her nephew had dared to undermine her authority,

"How dare you! Give me my wand back."

"No, get the hell out of my house, Bellatrix."

"No! She's not useful anyway. Look at her, Draco. A blob of dirty mudblood skin, all weak and whimpering. Other than maybe a fun chew toy for dogs, what good is she to you?"

He dared to look at Hermione as she lay there helpless on the floor. Bellatrix had a good point, why was she so important to him? Well, he didn't really know, so he looked back at his aunt and snapped,

"I would be weak and whimpering if you just spent the past hour torturing me for information. I had everything planned out; she was starting to trust me. Do you _understand_ how much you've set me back? Not everyone works the way you do, Bellatrix!"

Slightly stunned that someone whom she had thought lost his fight a few weeks back had suddenly gone and yelled at her the way he just did, she took a step back and lifted her chin proudly to defend herself,

"Well then. I'll be going now…_with_ my wand. I only hope for your sake, Draco, that I left some sort of sanity in that girl," she looked over at the crumpled form of Hermione and said, "or maybe not. Your failure is delicious to watch."

With that, she was gone. Finally alone he willed himself to be calm as he walked over to Granger. Kneeling down he took her pulse and deduced that his aunt hadn't killed her, silently thanking everyone he could; he picked her up and walked her back to her room. It almost scared him how limp she was, setting her down on her bed he looked at her. In a way, in her passed out stupor, she looked peaceful. But he could see the tear streaks on her face, the lines of premature age that had started to form. If he looked close enough, she looked worried. Summoning a chair up to the foot of her bed he planted himself in it and hardly had half a mind to put up the protective charms that kept her locked in the room, he knew the charms that kept her from apparating out were in place, and the barriers around the house were in place, he hardly cared if she ran around the house like a chicken with her head cut off at this point. He just had to figure out a way to get half the truth from her. Conveniently, he tried to forget about the second part of his vow –he'd figure out that path when he was presented with it. For the time being, he had to worry about whether or not she was as addled as the Longbottoms.

Childish hope kept him hanging on to the fact that she was ok and wouldn't be mad at him for standing idly by. But he knew better, he had seen the betrayal in her eyes. In one fell swoop he lost the one person he had thought was starting to see more in him than the strings on his arms and legs and his potential to be a puppet.

**A/N:** HA. Finally. Between a 5 year old's birthday party, sick horses, my own short-lived depression, exhaustion, and minor illness I bring you a chapter that is SO MUCH BETTER than chapter 11 (god if you only knew how much I hate that chapter). Omg. What is this? DRACO WITH A HEART? Omg, no. Jesus Christ, no! SAY IT AIN'T SO. I know, this seems a little OOC for him, but good god, no Dramione pairing works if Draco lets his walls down and shows that bleeding child we all know he is every now and then...am I right or am I bat shit crazy? Enough about Draco, let's talk Hermione. Holy shit, she gets the short end of the stick _every_ time. SO SORRY HERMIONE. BUT YOUR PAIN MAKES THIS ENTIRE STORY MAKE SENSE AND EASY FOR ME TO WRITE. I'm a bit of a rude writer like that. ANYWAY. Chapter 13 is already brewing in my mind and I'm going to go write it now to get back on my two chapter a day quota :D Review, as always!


	13. His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

_His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream_

She could hardly remember the last time she'd ever felt such pain. Every part of her body was on fire, aching and begging for relief. She just wished that someone would come and slit her throat, that way she would be out of her misery quickly. Unfortunately, the release didn't come. Instead she laid there in her own painful misery wondering why Draco didn't stop any of it, wondering if he had been lying to her the whole time, if he had simply been _playing_ her and her emotions. So many questions raced through her mind as quickly as the pain from the Cruciatus curse coursed through her body. It was crazy how one simple curse could make her feel like she was being burned at the stake _and_ eviscerated at the same time. The last thing she could remember was the feeling of the curse suddenly stopping and the sounds of Bellatrix walking away –beyond that she couldn't remember a thing. She fell into a black hole of dreamlessness, wondering if she had been sent to Purgatory for some sinister deeds she wasn't aware of doing. There was a brief feeling of floating then simply settling down on something hard. Other than that, she simply laid there motionless.

Slowly, feeling that wasn't pain began to ebb back into her limbs and she slowly began to come around, but when she opened her eyes and dropped her mouth to ask for a glass of water, all that came out was a piercing shriek. Throwing aside the blanket that had been covering she shot up and looked around wildly, only to be shocked to find the sallow, worried face of Malfoy in hers, taking her face in his hands and telling her to calm down, that she was safe. Taking several short, panicked breaths she relished the familiarity of someone she'd come to enjoy sharing her company with over the span of her imprisonment. For a brief moment, she wanted to throw her arms around him and cry for the next year. She wanted to cover her face and forget that there was something called 'reality'. She was tired of hiding the fact that she was starting to like (if not love) Draco Malfoy, pushing away the fact that he was the only person that suddenly seemed to care about her, even though he was the only person she'd had contact with. He sat down beside her and mostly against her better judgment she crawled into his lap and simply put her face into his chest and cried. And he awkwardly put his arms around her and simply let her cry. She wanted to question why he was being so nice, but for a moment she just let go.

But as reality slowly started to sink in she realized that this was his fault entirely. She wouldn't feel like her arms and legs were slowly being sawed off if he had shown a little more initiative in their friendship and went to try to help her. She had needed someone and he had failed. She had needed a hero, someone with the heart to stand up to the 'bad guys' and save her from the agony. As she should have known from the start, he failed to pull through when he was needed. Just like everything else in his life, if it wasn't going to benefit him, he wasn't going to do it. She had thought that they were better friends than that, but clearly he proved her wrong. He wasn't willing to stand up to his aunt just for her own safety. He was just keeping her here because without her he'd be dead. He never meant a single damn thing that he said to her. He was simply playing her like a game of chess. She was now clearly a spent piece that only held sentimental value to him, nothing more and nothing less.

Upon this realization she stood up and shoved him away, the tears trickling down her face as she stared at him long and hard. By the look on Malfoy's face, she knew that he knew what she was about to say, and just as he went to speak she exploded in a volcanic eruption of emotions,

"How could you? I was in so much _pain_. I needed someone to save me Draco, I was helpless…I needed…a friend to help me out!"

He simply sat there, which only made her angrier. Picking up one of the books off the bedside table she hurled it at him with all of her withering force, slightly disappointed that instead of nailing him in the face like he deserved, he caught it and calmly put it to the side. Running her hands through her tangled brown hair she said,

"I thought you were getting better, I thought that you were starting to see the better side of life. I thought you were better than your parents!"

That was enough to shock him into life. Standing up to tower over her he shouted back,

"I have warned you not to bring my parents into _any_ of this! Besides, you brought all of this on yourself. If you and Potter and Weasely just could sit by and let things happen and just let him take over, you wouldn't be here. If you could just let someone else be the fucking hero for once, you would be at home with your loving, alive parents instead of here! Guess what, war is a bitch, Hermione Granger. Shit happens and generally it happens to good people."

She was shocked that he was even trying to defend himself, her mouth hung open and she tried to regain her ability to argue but all that came out was a whoosh of air. There was a moment of tense silence before she started finally talking,

"You're kidding me, right? You're saying now that just because I want to live my life in equality and not fear that this is my fault?"

"Yeah, basically!"

"You know how asinine and redundant that sounds? You know what, Draco? I really was beginning to think that you were better than that. I had been fooling myself into seeing someone underneath that layer of inbred hate, someone that was wounded and in need of a friend. The funny thing is, I was so willing to befriend that kid. I wanted to show him that not everyone in this world wants to use him for their own greater good, that money and power isn't everything. I wanted him to know the happiness that I felt in just having friends; and for a while I thought he was beginning to understand…until you covered him back up and left me to defenselessly fend for myself against _Bellatrix_. You do deserve to die, you know that?"

He stared at her for a moment before looking down and saying,

"I could have let her kill you, you know. I disarmed her when she went to kill you."

For some reason, those words made her anger falter and almost halt in its tracks. That made no sense, if he was going to stop her, he should have done it from the beginning. The tears that had stopped started to run again and she whispered,

"Why? Why did you do it so late, Draco? You could watch me get tortured but you didn't want to watch me die? I saw you, I saw you sitting there at the dining room table."

"I…"

"You are a coward, Draco! The time came for you to prove everyone that you were a different man and you _failed._"

"I…I didn't watch you get tortured, Hermione."

And there he was again, that little child wanting nothing more than the comfort of a woman. He wanted the softness of knowing that someone felt true feelings for him, he was vulnerable and weak, but Hermione was hardly interested in rescuing that child. Instead, she simply stared at him,

"You were there…you were watching, I know it."

"No, I wasn't," he firmly declared.

Shaking her head she said, "Yes you did. Don't lie to me, Draco. You like watching people get tortured. You're as sick as the rest of them."

She spat in his direction and he clenched his jaw before shouting,

"You're a liar! I don't like watching people get tortured, and I would much rather shave my skin off than be classified and grouped with those masochistic crazy mother fuckers. I'm not what they are. I'm not what they want me to be!"

"Oh really? You've done a terrible job of being the black sheep of the Death Eater family, Draco! I bet your parents are proud of you."

He was finally unable to hide it anymore, clenching his fists to keep from hitting her like he so desperately wanted he screamed, "My parents are dead, Hermione! They're dead, dead, dead. You want to know what happened to them? Do you?"

The news was almost as painful as the Cruciatus curse had been. She felt a little awful for simply assuming that he was far better off than her, and suddenly his vulnerability made sense. He was a little boy without his mother's guiding hand. However, she wasn't able to answer his question. She didn't want to know what had become of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, because she knew if it was at the hands of Lord Voldemort, it was something terrible. But her lack of an answer only drove Draco on.

"They were tortured, for hours and hours on end. I had to sit there and watch as the man my parents followed tortured them into insanity. At one point, my mother passed out. He had Bellatrix revive her just so she would be awake for the rest of the torture. And then, when he was done with them, he let his snake gnaw on them for a little bit."

Her mouth hung open, and she wanted to hug him, but the second she made a step towards him, he held up a hand and said,

"Don't. Stay right there. My parents are dead because of you. Because of you and Weasel and Pothead. Because they escaped and he was called and he knew his time was wasted and his only threat had escaped _again_."

She could hardly think of what to say. But in her mind it all made so much sense now. She knew exactly how hard it was to lose the only two people in the world that seemed to love you even when the rest of society was hell bent against hating you. She wanted to think about her parents, but she had shoved them into such a distant corner of her mind that they were just half-remembered ghosts of her dreams. Phantoms that no longer existed in her world. Looking at him, she could see all of the fear, all of his insecurities, and all of his worries plastered on his alabaster face. Blond locks covered his stormy grey eyes, but she could still see the tears that painted his face in a transparent trail of saline. He was looking at the ground, so he didn't even see her move until she was right in front of him, holding him by the chin and forcing him to look into her eyes.

For the first time, she felt like she was looking into the gaze of a real human. Someone with a layer beyond that of the school bully. He was someone, a person. He had feelings and he had dreams; just like anyone else. She had spent so long believing that he was just a Death Eater spawned out of hate and confused love, but she knew just by the way he looked at her that his mother and father loved him like the only son he was. Granted, their love ruined him and turned him into a spoiled brat and when he needed a hand to push him in the right direction there was no one there to guide him and give him their wisdom. He was simply a boy who made all the wrong choices, but a _boy_ nonetheless. Finally, she said,

"If that was so horrible for you to watch, then why did you let it happen again?"

He could hardly speak, and instead his strangled words came out in a strained whisper,

"I don't know…I wanted to…I…"

Her own voice dropped an entire pitch and the tears began to choke her words,

"I needed you, Draco. I needed you to save me, and you didn't. You could have, you had the power to do it, but you didn't have the will…"

"I'm so sorry…I never intended for you to get hurt like that."

"I want to believe you, I really do."

"You have to. I'm all you've got."

The realization of his words hit home and she collapsed back down to her bed. She had no one, she was truly alone. Her parents were in Australia, Ron and Harry were somewhere searching for horcruxes to bring this evil wizard down. And where was she? Stuck at Malfoy manor like a rare exotic exhibit with an emotionally confused game warden –someone she was suddenly falling for against her better judgment and will. She felt him sit down beside her and leaning into his shoulder she sobbed,

"I don't have parents either."

He looked down at the top of her head (which was all he could see of her face) and gave her a puzzling look and asked,  
>"I'm sorry, what?"<p>

Sniffling, she raised her head and rubbed some tears out of her eyes and said,

"Parents. I don't technically have them anymore."

"I'm…I'm so sorry. Did a group of Death Eaters get them…or did they die in a plane crash…?"

Shaking her head she took a deep breath and said,

"No. They're alive. But they don't remember me anymore. I…to save them, I had to find a way to make it so that they wouldn't ever bring suspicion to themselves as parents of a mudblood child. I obliviated myself from their memories, they're living in Australia. And if I ever get out of here alive, I'm going to find them and reverse the charm…but something tells me that I won't."

He hardly listened to the last part of her explanation, simply focusing on the fact that unlike he had been forcing himself to believe, he was suddenly not as alone as he thought. There was someone in this world that knew exactly what it was like to lose their parents. And perhaps her situation was worse: to know that her parents were alive but didn't remember any of the memories they'd made together. In any effect, he was growing wary of being that shoulder to cry on and suddenly started to pull away. She let him start to leave, and he almost made it out before she asked,

"Draco…could you…stay in here with me just for tonight? I don't want to be alone."

He was very, very close to simply telling her to sod off and figure out this shit on her own, but the fear in her eyes kept him rooted there. Sighing he nodded and as she crawled in the covers, he pressed himself as far away from her as he could, refusing to get under anything and risk their skin touching. It didn't take long for her to fall back asleep, and as her breathing grew rhythmic, he began to debate whether or not to leave her, but something kept him there. In her sleep, she rolled so that she was facing him. Sighing quietly, he reached out to move some of the hair out of her face. She looked so deeply peaceful. It puzzled him and excited him at the same time to know that suddenly there was indeed someone in this world that understood what he was going through, and he wasn't about to let her go.

Even though he was meant to die.

**A/N: **YEAH. Back on track, baby. I found this chapter very touching and emotional. There's a chance I was watching P.S. I Love You while I wrote this, but you can't prove anything. Anyway, I know you totally wanna review this, because reviews make me happy, and a happy Legion is a happy world. :D LOVE THE TINY BUT LOVELY SUPPORT GROUP THAT THIS HAS GATHERED 3


	14. His tune is heard on the distant hill

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_His tune is heard on the distant hill_

"_You do deserve to die, you know that_?"

His conscience that repeated Hermione's words of unwanted wisdom and truth were back; much to his dismay. Her angry words echoed in his mind and he couldn't block her out. Draco knew better, he knew that she'd said those things when she was angry –but sometimes anger brought out the truth from people, wrenched the reality out of a briar patch of lies. In honesty, he knew that she didn't exactly mean what she said, but at the same time she'd spoken her heart. Still keeping his eyes closed because he wasn't ready to wake up, he rolled over and took a deep breath, trying to fall back asleep, but mind-Hermione just wouldn't leave him alone.

"_You like watching people get tortured. You're as sick as the rest of them_."

That one shouldn't sting the way it did, but then again he shouldn't even be worrying about what the fuck the mudblood thought in the first place. Unfortunately, he had a hard time ignoring the only person that seemed to understand him and know what he was going through. Granted, if he had known that 'befriending' her would come with hearing her demeaning voice in his head with every single ego-bruising taunt that she threw at him, he wouldn't have dared to approach her with a fifty foot stick. Now, of course, he was knee deep in mudblood friendship and it was a bit like devil's snare. He knew he could stop moving at anytime and get out quickly, but for some reason he kept struggling on even though it was made very clear that absolutely nothing was going to come from this; especially since in the end one of them was going to have to die. Unable to sleep anymore he finally opened his eyes and found him staring into the still sleeping face of Hermione Granger. He studied her again for what seemed like the millionth time.

For most of the night, he did not sleep. He had spent it worrying about how the future would turn out, wondering whether or not he'd have to end up killing her like he'd promised or if he'd die, or if they'd both die. Sometimes he'd find himself feeling selfish (rather, he knew that Granger would tell him he was being selfish) and wishing that she would just go ahead and realize that the cause she fought for was a lost one and she'd tell him what he needed to know so he could kill her. Other times he simply saw himself content with dying for something 'good' for once. Most of the time though he fantasized of them both getting through this and going their separate ways with nothing but a set of emotional and physical scars to prove what happened between them. Even if they did both get out of this alive, there would be no way that he'd agree that anything other than the common prisoner-warden relationship happened between them. He might be a 'friend' of hers, but in the outside world where reality existed, he was nothing but an enemy to her.

Of course, it was easier to say such things rather than practice them.

After laying there for a few quiet moments he moved to get up, going as slowly as possible so as not to wake the sleeping woman next to him. Just as he thought he was about to be free from her for a few moments he heard a quiet,

"Draco?"

Sighing he turned around to see Hermione raised up by her elbows, blinking at him sleepily. Damn it, he had woke her up. Looking at her for a moment he said,

"Yes?"

"Where are you going?"

He thought about it for a moment. Where _was_ he going?

_Away from her._

But he wouldn't admit that out loud. Shrugging he finally said,

"I was going to go check on breakfast, since it seems it hasn't been served yet."

She bought his lie and uttered a quiet 'oh', and taking that as his hall pass; he quietly left the room, happy to be out of her presence. While he enjoyed her company, he felt like he'd had way too much muggle born for the day already –he'd passed his quota of socializing with the less fortunate of the world. Running a thin hand through tousled blond hair he took off his path of heading to the kitchen like he'd said and instead walked up the stairs and to the lavish master bathroom. There, he took a long shower, simply standing beneath the hot water and letting the rhythmic feeling of the water hitting his skin soothe sore muscles and wash away the worry. Beneath the stream of water he thought about few things and simply enjoyed the moment for what it was, rather than what it could be. Once all the mirrors were fogged up and the glass sweating, he stepped out and wrapped a towel around his lower half. Stalking over to the mirror he wiped a small circle clear with his palm and studied the wizard that stood before him.

Who was that blond haired boy with convicted grey eyes standing there? Who did he take company with? Who were his real friends? How long was he going to live? So many judging questions bombarded his subconscious, and as they whittled down his ego, the straw that broke the camel's back was an unwanted answer from Hermione as her ghost-voice rocked his brain,  
>"<em>You are a coward, Draco!<em>"

Not exactly appreciating the assessment at the moment, and still hardly stable he snarled and without warning threw a curled fist at the mirror. It cracked into a million different patterns and shattered to the floor around his feet. Glaring down at the shards and the jagged reflection that glared back at him, he felt pain bite at his fist. Looking down he noticed a few shards sticking out of his flesh. Gritting his teeth he picked out the pieces of mirror, got dressed and told the house elves that they needed to get a mirror to replace the one he broke. He could see the questions of 'why can't we just fix that one?' forming in their minds, but they knew better than to propose rational solutions to their sometimes irrational master. By the time he managed to calm himself down, the late morning had ticked away into late afternoon, and in the gaping nothingness of loneliness he realized he craved Granger's company. Not exactly overjoyed that suddenly he relied on her to keep him entertained, he shoved his hands into a jacket he'd put on earlier and headed off towards her cell.

He found her re-reading a book, looking as pale as she had the day before. Frowning at her he cleared his throat and asked,

"How are you?"

She slowly looked up from what she was doing and shot him a 'are you kidding me?' glare and snottily replied,

"How do you think?"

Not exactly liking the attitude she was giving him (especially since he was trying his hardest to be nice), he sneered and questioned,

"Is it a mudblood thing to be a bitch when someone else is trying to be nice?"

"No."

"Oh, well then…is that just something that you do then?"

"No."

She was infuriating him with her short answers. Very close to stomping his foot and throwing something at her like a child he entered her room and sat down at the edge of her bed. She simply stared at him, and as the tension and the silence grew between them, it was obvious that he was more bothered by the tension than she was and practically shouted,

"What? What do you want? What do I need to do to make you talk to me like a normal human being?"

The second he asked the question, he could see that she had gotten what she wanted and he instantly regretted losing control like that. Her voice was surprisingly cold,

"I want to go."

He was puzzled by her demand and shook his head,

"I can't do that, you know that."

"That's bullshit, and you know it. Besides, what's keeping me here? It can't be that you're deeply attracted to me and love my company –because you're Draco Malfoy and Draco Malfoy doesn't need anyone."

Again, the things she said shouldn't hurt, and he most certainly shouldn't be letting them bother her, but for some foolish reason he'd thought that they had something special. He had thought that between them they shared the bond of being late in life orphans; she clearly saw it as leverage to get her out of her imprisonment. Of course the first time he opened himself up to someone they let him down. Draco wanted to be shocked by her attitude, but she was desperate to get out and he knew that desperation brought out the worst in everyone. Willing himself to be calm he said,

"I'm not letting you go."

At the finality in his voice she burst into tears. Burying her face in her hands she sobbed loudly and explained,

"I hate it here. I hate it here so much. I miss Harry, I miss Ron. I'm so useless," she looked at Draco with accusing eyes and asked, "why can't you let me go? You're going to die anyway…"

Biting his lip, he wanted to answer truthfully. He wanted to tell her that he was afraid to die, that he didn't want her to leave because he knew that without her here he'd be killed very quickly. He desperately wanted her out of his house. He hated the way she made him feel, but no one could get what they wanted. Instead of answering her question, he simply shrugged. He was tired of arguing with her, she was going to fly off the handle no matter what was said or done. As predicted she shouted at him,

"What good am I to you? I'm never going to tell you what you need to know! You're going to die anyway; I just don't see the point of you keeping me here."

Maybe Hermione was right, maybe he _was_ a coward. When he was given the right opportunity to prove to her that he was different, like he'd claimed, he simply shied away from it and hurriedly tucked himself back away into that shell of familiarity, terrified of the exposure of his character that he was in danger of. He was too afraid to reveal who he really was. Gritting his teeth he looked at her then looked away and sheepishly said,

"You say it like there's no way out of this situation for me."

"Well, there's not."

He looked at her, trying to search her hard brown eyes for any sign of compassion but realized that she was simply mad at him for all of this, and nothing he said or did was going to convince her otherwise. He knew those moods (maybe it was that time of the month…), it was one of those moods where when he woke up absolutely everything done annoyed him and he hated the world for his mishaps. Swallowing he quietly asked,

"But you're the smartest person I know, and you can't think of any way to get me out of this?"

She was now annoyed by him. Huffing loudly she crossed her arms and haughtily said,

"While I want to say I'm flattered that you consider me the smartest person you know, I just want to remind you that you took an _unbreakable vow_. You know that kind of dark magic is beyond my knowledge. I doubt there's anything you can do about it other than go through with it, which will not happen because I won't tell you what you need."

Finally, Draco got tired of her constant abuse and snarled,

"You are so naïve. You only know half of the vow."

She raised a questioning eyebrow, but simply let him continue on,

"Not only was I supposed to get information from you, but when I was done getting it from you I was supposed to kill you."

Just as he'd expected, the news came as a shock to Hermione. Her eyes grew as large as galleons and she clenched her fists, her voice was strangled,

"You…you're going to kill me?"

Irritated at her stupid question he growled,  
>"For being a mudblood genius, you are so stupid. If I was going to go through with my vow, don't you think I'd have drugged your food by now and asked you what I needed to know then killed you by now? I wouldn't have waited a good month and a half to do it. I'm not that stupid, Granger."<p>

She swallowed down the fear that had risen in her throat and asked,

"Then why can't you just let me go?"

That was another thing he didn't want to hear. Springing up from his sitting position next to her on the bed he shouted,

"Because I think of you as my friend, and beyond these walls and out in the real world, we _can't_ be friends, no matter what. Believe it or not, I like having you as a 'friend', even if you do talk way too damn much and I hear your voice when it's quiet. I am selfish, and I don't want anyone else to have you. That's why."

She stared at him then said,

"But that's not how friendships work…"

"That's how mine work!"

And leaving it at that, he stormed out of the room to leave Hermione shouting a string of cusses at him.

**A/N: **AAAHHH. This came late, lol. Not much to say at the moment. Other than I wrote half of this with my eyes closed. SORRY IF IT SUCKS. Next chapter maybe coming tomorrow, idk. Watching over my trainer's 5 year old tomorrow...I WILL LET YOU KNOW LOL And while I may be tired, I can still ask for you guys to leave your thoughts on this story (whether it sucks and needs to burn, or if you enjoy it) in the form of reviews. LOVE YA.


	15. The free bird leaps on the wind

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_The free bird leaps on the back of the wind_

If Hermione had ever been hopeless before, she was beyond any sort of consolation now. She had taken note of Draco's increased kindness towards her, which she had deduced was something that she never thought Malfoy could do: he was developing feelings for her. The continued meals, the shower, the clean clothes, and everything else he'd done for her had been done out of genuine kindness that Draco felt for her. While she appreciated his affection, she also detested it. After learning about his parents, she believed that he was simply latching onto her as the closest thing to hold onto for emotional support, she thought that outside of these walls, in a world full of reality, what they'd forcibly created here would crumble and fall on the cracked foundation they'd built it on. She was firmly convinced (and rightfully so) that he was still the same Draco Malfoy that had tortured her endlessly in school. Of course, he had shown a lot of things about himself that often times proved her wrong about him, but she refused to fully acknowledge them, along with her undeniable feelings for the blond Slytherin.

Unfortunately, she'd been hoping that their 'friendship' would lead Draco to seeing the more sensible side of things and realize that keeping her there was hardly benefitting him. Clearly he had not thought so. She wanted out of this place more than she'd ever wanted anything in her entire life. She was tired of feeling like she was useless to the world, and no matter what Draco told her she'd always fight for what she believed in and not what other people told her she should fight for.

After she'd deplorably begged for her release from Malfoy Manor, things between her and Draco had started to slowly build back up to where they were before that fight. She was gradually forgetting all that she wanted and why she wanted out of the house so bad, and it seemed like he was simply accepting the fact that regardless of what he did, short of releasing her, she'd be miserable. Of course, in a way she understood why he kept her there. She got that if she left, he'd die. In a way, she knew that he was holding onto her like he would hold onto his blood-beating heart, she was his lifeline, and not in any romantic way. She was literally his only way to stay alive. Though, sometimes she selfishly wondered what he had to live for in life anymore.

Needless to say, after a few days the anger she felt towards him that boiled her blood and addled her thoughts ebbed down to nothing more than a dull throb. Things were slowly going back to the way they were, and much to her dismay, her feelings for him regenerated at a stronger intensity than before. Every time he walked into her room, she found herself unashamedly staring at him. Every time she heard his voice, chills raced down her spine. If she didn't know better, she'd say she had a very large, very obvious crush on Draco. But she simply chalked it all up to the lack of human interaction she'd received in the last two months. Regardless, it was hard to ignore what she was feeling and was finding herself dreaming of him. She could feel his lips against hers, strangely soft. His hands firm but gentle against her body.

Horrifyingly so, Hermione was fantasizing about Draco Malfoy.

These daydreams were hardly remedied, if not made worse by his constant presence or the fact that he intentionally did things to make her uncomfortable, like he still stayed in the bathroom until she got in the shower, he purposely got in her face only to pull away at the last second. He was pushing her boundaries, and oddly enough he was letting him in. Every part of her otherwise sensible conscience screamed at her daily for letting any of this go to her head, but it was hard. In a way, she was desperate for human affection, being out of the influence of Ron and Harry; mostly having Ron to dote over her, she was a little lost, a little lonely, and very discouraged. Unfortunately the closest human being that showed any sign of being remotely attracted to her (for a lack of better words, obviously) was Draco Malfoy. Though, she supposed if he stayed like this, nice and polite and hardly mentioning her blood status, all the time she could most certainly learn to like him, not just lust him.

Lately, a new routine in her day had been set up. It started with her eating breakfast, then generally right on time (as creepy as it was), Draco would show up with a cluster of books in his arms to throw at her. Sometimes he'd leave to go do things, sometimes he'd stay. If he stayed, he generally playfully harassed her for whatever she was reading, claiming that what he decided to read was far more superior and for true wizards and witches. Generally those taunts got books thrown at his face (most of which he unfortunately caught). As annoying as his presence was, she greatly appreciated that he was taking time out of his self pitying days to entertain her and keep her company amongst the monotonous haze of being a prisoner with very, very little to do.

The morning had started out like normal, the five-star quality breakfast was still warm and waiting for her on one of the tables the moment she woke up (every time she wondered if he had an elf stand there with the food and wait until they saw her stirring awake to put it down). Unlike most of the days, she ate this breakfast slowly. When she was done she crawled back to her bed and pulled out one of the books Draco had loaned her to read the first few weeks she was captured. She knew practically every word and every twist of the plot, but it was still one of her favorites. Four hundred pages or so into the book, she looked up to notice Draco leaning against the archway of the room watching her with an expression that she wanted to say was smug, but simply labeled it as the way he normally looked at people. Staring back at him for a brief moment, she went back to reading and snidely said,

"Oh, I was wondering when you'd show up."

Draco looked at her, wondering what gave her such authority in her voice. No matter what, she still managed to make him feel like a child regardless of what he did. Pursing his lips and lifting his chin a little he sharply replied,

"You've gotten far too used to my reliable arrival time, so I figured I'd shake it up and wait until the evening rather than the early morning to come entertain you."

She shot him a puzzling look as he strode into the room, picked up a book, and sat down on the end of the bed, as far away from her as possible and asked,

"Is it really already the evening?"

He shot her a knowing smile, one that she knew meant he could just be fucking with her if he wanted and said,

"Yeah. About five o'clock. Not exactly what I'd call evening, but it's most certainly not morning."

"Oh. Wow, I didn't realize I had been here that long."

"Actually, one of the elves told me you didn't wake up until noon. So, really, you haven't."

She could go on to question whether or not he had his elves spying on her, but she chose not to and instead looked back down at her book, re-reading the same line, no longer able to concentrate with him here. Gritting her teeth and cursing herself for her lack of attention span and desperation, she scooted a little farther away from him and pressed herself against the headboard of the bed and tried to get back into the book.

It truly amused Draco with how distracted and sometimes uncomfortable Hermione became when he was around. Part of the reason he spent so much time with her was because he knew that she either liked him or lusted him. Whatever the reason, it was deeply entertaining to him and he could hardly deny himself the opportunity to make Granger uncomfortable (at least, that was his false reasoning to himself as to why he spent so much time with her). Truth was that ever since he'd kissed her, he could hardly get the surprised feeling of her lips against his out of his head, and even stranger, he wanted it again.

Call it love; call it the curse of being a seventeen year old boy who listened to his dick more than he listened to his heart or brain when it came to the ladies. Whatever it was, he simultaneously detested and enjoyed it.

A fairly comfortable silence had fallen between the two, as it normally did. Mostly because Draco hardly ever wanted to actually talk to Hermione and she generally seemed to just enjoy his physically being there. Though, as she sat there still on the same page she'd been a few minutes ago, her mind wandered to Hogwarts. She wondered what everyone was doing there right now; she wondered how Ron and Harry were doing on their mission. More importantly she wondered if Draco had been raised differently if he would have been her friend. She believed in nurture over nature, and truly thought that his parents had been the root of everything, look how good he'd gotten just two months after their untimely death and perhaps much needed absence in his life! She smiled to herself as a random thought came into mind, and couldn't help but voice it,

"You know. I could never understand _how_ you became a Prefect at Hogwarts."

Draco slowly looked up from his book and stared at her before shrugging,

"When you have parents willing to threaten and bribe people, lots of things can happen."

She looked at him for a moment and laughed,

"You were such a dick about it, too."

He tried his hardest to repress a smile, but could hardly keep the mirth from his voice,

"What do you mean by that, Granger?"

She was far too amused with this conversation. Shrugging at the question she laughed at the thought and said,

"You did _anything_ you could to get points taken away from Gryffindor."

He finally smiled at the fact, scooted over closer to her and said,

"You guys made it far too easy."

"No we didn't!"

"Oh please, always out of bed: ten points from Gryffindor. Always breaking shit: twenty points from Gryffindor, constantly breaking the rules: thirty points from Gryffindor. and Being an annoying know it all ass hole that makes everyone else in the class look like they were raised by trolls or are part troll: one hundred points from Gryffindor."

Even though he had pointed out several things that might have been offensive and potentially hurt her feelings, Hermione couldn't help but laugh them off and retaliated with her own point deductions,

"Ok so then that means ten points from Slytherin for having cronies that closely resembled trolls. Twenty points from Slytherin for hanging out and probably sleeping with that Pansy chick. Thirty points for being a punk. What else? Oh! One hundred points from Slytherin for being an equal supposed know it all ass hole that simply though everyone else was stupid."

There was silence that followed her words, then laughter. It felt strange to be laughing in such dark times, but yet it was oddly freeing. Hermione could hardly remember the last time she'd laughed, and Draco simply wondered if he'd ever laughed at all. Finally, the amusement died down and Hermione leaned into Draco, putting her head on his shoulder, solemnly asking,

"Do you think if I had been a pureblood, or you a mudblood, we'd have been friends at Hogwarts?"

The question kept Draco quiet for a moment before answering,

"I don't know. Probably," he looked down at her and asked, "why? Do you think so?"

She softly smiled up at him and nodded, "Yeah, I think so."

It was odd to be this close to him and for him to not be doing it to make her uncomfortable on purpose, or yelling at her in her face. She felt abnormally calmed by his presence, and up this close she could see everything that she couldn't see when he sat at the edge of the bed and read books with her. Here, she could see every line in his face, every scar and imperfection, everything that made him seem all that more human. What was better was that she could smell his cologne, feel his warmth seeping through his clothes and onto her. Next to him, she suddenly felt so dirty. She had not been allowed a shower in over a week, and while she hardly minded it, she suddenly became very aware how unshaved her legs were, how her breath was probably horrible, and the unkempt tangles in her hair. At the thought, she quickly scooted away from him. He was so perfect, and she was so unworthy. Confused by the sudden detachment he looked over at her and asked,

"What?"

Shaking her head she took a few deep breaths to try to contain the feelings that had just flooded her body. Her silence concerned him and he did the opposite of what she had hoped he'd do and moved right over to her. Lifting her head up by her chin he was not exactly shocked to tears in her eyes and asked again,

"What's wrong?"

Sniffling she jerked her head to the side and said,

"Nothing. You wouldn't understand."

Rather, she didn't want to tell him that she thought she was falling in love with him. It was a foolish crush, one that she knew she shouldn't have but couldn't help feeling anyway. Draco, however, was confused at her sudden change in emotion (all women were impossible, Granger the seemingly least feminine woman on earth included) and wasn't going to let her get away with simply leaving him guessing. Grabbing her face again he forced her to look at him once more and said through mostly annoyed gritted teeth,

"What is wrong, Hermione?"

Gritting her teeth she glared at him. How could he even begin to understand what she felt? The inferiority complex that'd been with her ever since she was born was only magnified by her current situation. He reminded her of all the things she could be, but simply couldn't reach those goals. Yanking her face from his grip once more she brought her knees up to her chest and physically shut him out, simply shaking her head she firmly said,

"_Really_, you wouldn't understand."

Hardly prepared to take 'no' for an answer he demanded,

"God damnit, Hermione Granger. What the fuck is wrong?"

Not exactly wanting to spill the truth she half-lied,

"I just want to take a shower."

Perplexed at her answer, he leaned back away from her and stared (almost rudely) then threw his hands in the air,

"Well Jesus, you didn't have to cry about it. All you could have said was 'I feel like a filthy pig and would like a shower', crying is so _annoying_."

So he did think she was dirty and unattractive? The hurt shone in her eyes, and he saw that, but simply thought it was because he'd called her annoying. Getting off the bed and grabbing her by the wrist he said,

"C'mon then, if you're going to get all bent out of shape due to your unfortunate lack of personal hygiene, then let's go."

Allowing him to drag her off the bed and partly down the hallway she yanked her hand out of his grip and angrily said,

"It's not my fault I smell bad and have unshaved legs; it's your fault that you don't let me out of the damn room."

He laughed (his amusement annoyed her) and said,

"Please. You hardly smell bad, you just smell like a stale room and I don't know what your legs look like under the pants I gave you, but I suppose I could take your word for it."

Not exactly impressed with his evaluation of her she crossed her arms and followed behind him like a little kid, pouting the entire way. It didn't take very long to get to the lavish bathroom she'd only been in twice. He shoved her in and shut the door behind her, but she knew that at some point he'd pointlessly barge in and bother and embarrass her for no reason other than because he liked to hear how annoyed she got. As quickly as she could, so she could reduce the risk of Draco walking in while she was stripping (it was a legitimate worry), she removed her clothes and practically sprinted into the shower. Once under the stream of warm water, she felt her worries and insecurities melt away and disappear down the drain.

She had forgotten how much she loved a good shower, and how good a shower felt after a week and a half of not being allowed one.

Pouring soap onto one of the body sponges, she began to run it over her body, massaging tight muscles. Closing her eyes and leaning into the warm water she absentmindedly ran a hand up from her upper thigh, over her hips and over her stomach, wondering what Draco's hands would feel like. Before she could move her hands further she heard a curiously annoying voice cut through the sound of water hitting the tiles and her skin,

"_What_ are you doing?"

Panic ensued as she threw one arm over her breasts and another over her crotch, glaring at him through the foggy glass of the shower, barking at him angrily and thanking every single god she could think of that he could not see the reddening of her cheeks through the glass and barked,

"What are _you_ doing? I'm showering, Draco!"

He snorted at her and calmly said, "I'm giving you clean clothes," he held up what looked like a pair of shorts and a shirt, "I had the elves go get you something that wasn't hideously unattractive on your body. Anyway, I asked you what you were doing first." He wore a smirk that mirrored a keen knowing. He had an idea of what she'd been about to do, and he was clearly deeply amused by this. However, he figured it'd be far more advantageous for him to question and prod her until she broke. Flustered she backed up a bit in the shower and stopped when she felt the cold tiles against her back and said,

"I was washing my body, like anyone who hadn't had a shower in a week and a half would do. Now get _out_."

Unfortunately, he simply stood his ground. It irritated her how unabashedly crude he was about all of this. Uncomfortable and equally turned on the way his eyes traveled over her body, tracing every single curve that wasn't recklessly hidden behind her frantic hands like there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. It made her feel attractive, it made her feel like anything she saw wrong with her body were simply forgotten. The worst part was, he could see the way she was looking at him and he knew exactly what she was thinking. Finally, he said,

"Ok," and did as she asked (much to her surprise).

Once the door was firmly closed behind him she let out a sigh of deep relief and quickly washed her hair and got out. Wrapping the provided towel tightly around her body she dried off and looked over at the clothes he'd brought her. Studying it, she suddenly realized that he'd gotten her shorts that were far too short and a tank top that was far too low-cut. Angry by this, she secured the towel around her and burst out of the bathroom with the clothes in her hand. Draco was leaning against the wall opposite the doorway, looking deeply amused by all of this (yet pulling off the innocent until proven guilty look). Throwing the items at him she shouted,

"I am not wearing that!"

Catching them with relative ease he held them up and looked at her,

"Granger, please. Put some clothes on. I'm not going to argue with you while you're standing there naked underneath that towel. It's awkward and gives you more of an advantage," he winked at her.

Hardly attracted to him at the moment she gave him a look that was hard to pass off as anything but disgust and said,

"Just because I'm a prisoner doesn't mean that I'm going to wear _slut_ clothes!"

"Oh please, being my prisoner means that you're going to do, wear, say, eat, and read whatever I want you to. And I won't say it again, but put some fucking clothes on," he threw the clothes back at her, which she caught.

Clutching them tightly in her hands she shouted, "Friends don't make friends wear things they're uncomfortable in!"

Tilting his head slightly, he realized he'd hit the nail on the head of what she had been worried about earlier. Why was it looks? Always looks. As far as he was concerned, she was fairly attractive (as far as mudbloods go, anyway…it could be worse, right?), and for that why shouldn't she show off and flaunt what she was given? Clearly she did not share the same view,

"Friends make friends face their insecurities head on. Now put those on before I take your towel and clothes away from you and make you laze around naked."

Horrified, she stated, "You wouldn't."

She wished the second she'd said that that she hadn't; he crossed the small space between them and grabbed the front of her towel, but kept his hand there and gazed at her,

"Try me."

Clenching her teeth over and over again so that a muscle in her jaw visibly jumped with each compression, she thought over the pros and cons of the situation he'd presented her with. On one hand, she could wear the clothes and deal with it and make something out of the bed sheets she had. And on the other hand she could push him in this argument and end up naked for the rest of her time there (she honestly didn't put that past him –it seemed like something he'd do just to watch her squirm). Finally she looked away from him and said,

"Fine…let go of my towel…please."

Thankfully, he obeyed and took a step back. Disappearing back into the bathroom she pulled on the bra and panties he'd also provided her with then struggled into the shorts and ripped the tank top over her head. Grimacing at her appearance, she twisted her wet hair in her hands and squeezed out any extra moisture before leaving the bathroom. God, she felt like a hooker. How could they stand such things? As she slid out the door, Draco applauded her and said,

"Beautiful," the compliment (though more of a statement than anything) made her heart leap up into her throat, "see how easy that was? I honestly don't see why you bother fighting me anymore."

In a way, she was again both uncomfortable and attracted to the way he stared at her. It was almost like a hungry wolf. And if she was a steak begging to be eaten, she'd love the way he was looking at her. But as an awkward seventeen year old with hardly any sexual experience that she figured couldn't rival any of his own experience, she felt like a stranger in her own skin. Gesturing for him to lead the way back to her room, she followed in step behind him, studying the way he moved. He had a strange swagger that she tried to reproduce, but found it hard to move her hips the same way he did and instead chose to settle back into her own swinging gait. Looking down at the ground and barely able to see his feet as they moved away from her, when they arrived in her room she forgot to look up and ran straight into Draco, his hands grabbed at her bare shoulders to keep her from stumbling backwards, and as he stabilized her, she became increasingly aware of how warm his hands felt against her skin. Against her will, her heart began to race and her breathing grew slightly quicker. Daring to look up at him, she noticed that same hungry look in his eyes. It made her want to run away, but as his face slowly drew closer to hers she found herself paralyzed. Even with every single sense on lockdown, screaming at her to run away she was a slave to her own desires.

Every doubt and insecurity washed away the second his lips pressed against hers. Like a flame stroked with a single breath she came alive beneath his touch, working into the kiss. It was safe to say that as far as snogging went, she was familiar. She'd had one or two dry runs of it and was somewhat comfortable on what to do with herself. As much as she wanted to wrap her arms around him, he still held her by her arms, and seemed adamant at keeping them firmly planted there. However, the rest of her body was free and without thinking she shoved her hips against his. Apparently the aggressive move was enough to startle him, because he halted the movement of his lips for a moment before continuing on. Slowly he began to walk them towards her bed, and she was so very sure of what was to come, but for some reason she could hardly care less.

She wanted to say no, but in a way, it was hard to say 'no' when someone's tongue was inside her own mouth. That and her fantasies could hardly live up to the real thing. For once in Hermione's life logic was beaten out by emotion. Letting him push her down onto the bed she jumped slightly to feel a hand creeping up under her shirt. His hands were dry and slightly rough against her skin (the roughness contradicted anything she'd figured, being a spoiled rich boy she expected his hands to be cream and smooth, but the roughness was an odd turn on). Without much thinking, he ripped the top off of her, their lips parting to allow the article of clothing to come off with ease. Finally realizing that her arms had been free for a while, she did her own exploring. Tentative hands slithered up his shirt and delicate fingers traced the muscles of his stomach (which instinctively clenched at the tickling touch) and then ran up to his chest, and without much thinking she raked her nails down the pale skin lightly. Apparently she was doing something right, because she felt his whole body shudder and convulse above her.

The kisses grew deeper and their exploration more urgent as their body temperatures rose. Urgency dictated everything they did. The quickness in which he shed his shirt, her desperation as she clawed off his pants and boxers, the need in his every movement as he helped her shimmy out of her shorts and panties. Kisses moved from lips to jaw lines, to chins, to collarbone and back. However, as his hand trailed from one of her breasts and down a thigh to in between her legs she suddenly stopped and grew increasingly aware of how much he'd been leading her. Beneath him, he felt her hesitation and withdrew his hand. Pushing up to look down at her he whispered a husky,

"What?"

The worry in her eyes was obvious as she shifted uncomfortably beneath him and admitted in a rushed whisper,  
>"I've never…gone this far before."<p>

Well, that was a relief. For a moment he had been worried that he'd hurt her. He'd take a virgin's hesitation over physical pain done by him any day. Relaxing slightly he lowered his head to trail a line of kisses from her collar bone, into the crook of her neck up her jaw line and a quick kiss on her lips before reassuring,

"I can tell, but it's alright."

"No, it's not alright. You're so…good at this and I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"Yes it is. Listen. Do you trust me?"

She nodded and he went on,

"Ok then. There's no need to worry. So shut the fuck up and kiss me, woman."

In any other circumstance she would have been annoyed at his willingness to look past her fears and charge off into the unknown, but she simply nodded and reached up to capture his lips between hers again. Beyond that, her mind could hardly keep up with what had happened. The tangle of naked limbs, the sweat, sex, her scent and his mixed in the air, the stab of pain that came before the flood of ecstasy. The pleasure, the feeling of accomplishment; it was all one long, muddled memory. But the one thing she remembered clearly was how nice it felt to fall asleep in his arms.

**A/N: **AWW HOW CUTE. Now, before some of you (I'm not pointing fingers) sharpen your pitch forks because you thought I'd go into a very detailed sex scene, let me say this to you: IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO GET YOU OFF, GO WATCH PORN, CUZ THAT'S WHAT THAT'S FOR. Kthx. Well, they're cute for now. La la la, um. Yay seks? Idek. Sorry this update was late (I FAIL D8). I hope you at least enjoy the chapter xD Of course, reviews are always welcome!


	16. A bird that stalks down his narrow cage

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

_A bird that stalks down his narrow cage_

By the time Hermione woke up, the spot that Draco had once occupied had long since grown cold. In a half-sleep daze, she reached for the person that was no longer there. Disappointment and abandonment shocked her awake like a bucket of ice water to the face. Brown eyes flew wide open and muscles twitched quickly to bring her into an upright position. Her blurry gaze glanced around the obviously empty room for the light blond haired boy, frustration registered next after the shock and abandonment. To be honest, she hadn't really expected him to stay the entire night (why would he want to sleep on a lumpy mattress with _anyone _when he had a plush bed elsewhere in the house?), but she had most certainly gotten her hopes up way too high and was now suffering the bruises from the fall. Really, was it too much to ask?

Not that she knew the dynamics and specifics of being a lover, but one would think (she most certainly did) that at least one full night spent in the arms of a sexual devotee surely wasn't too hard to ask?

Slowly, the numbness of sleep wore off and stiff joints and sore muscles that'd never been used before burned and ached as she moved off of the bed. Hunger overrode any other sensation as she set her eyes on the ever expected breakfast that had been given to her. Hardly worrying about being lady like, she stuffed the food in her mouth as quickly as she could allow and in the deafening silence she began to wonder how or why she'd let him between her legs at all. Her logic told her that there had been absolutely no reason for her actions, that any merit she believed them to have were falsified and simply half-hearted, heart-destructing delusions of grandeur. It was easy, logic reasoned with her, to see past the ruse he was putting up. Easy to see that she was simply a pawn for his twisted game of chess, and she truly wanted to believe that he had no feelings for her –ignoring him would be so much easier if she knew for a fact that he actually hated her, but it was hard to dispute such reasons when just a few short months ago he had been a true blue mudblood hater. Her emotions argued that if he didn't love her the way she believed she was beginning to love him, he wouldn't have bothered to sleep with her at all. Either way she looked at it, in the end she still lost, because it's hard to find a future in a man who's been marked for death like a lamb to slaughter. Then again, perhaps that's where half of the appeal she felt towards him came in. Who didn't like a good charity case?

Granted, the Draco she'd known for years hardly warranted such worry but the Draco she'd gotten to know deserved every bit of pity in her heart. For some reason, as she sat there chewing a bite of her breakfast, she couldn't help but realize how her life had inexplicably turned from shit to a tragic Shakespeare play; how had she let that happen? More importantly, when the time came, would she be able to really let Draco die because of her own morals? So much was brought into question with the new numbers that had been haphazardly added to the equation.

Even worse, Hermione could now say with wavering confidence that she was indeed in love with Draco Malfoy.

Draco, on the other hand, was busy worrying whether or not his parents were going to burst out of their graves any second and strangle their son for doing what he'd just done.

At first it'd been nice to fall asleep with someone he'd been inexplicably dreaming about for weeks on end, but as the hormones and desire faded away into a dull ebb in his body, reality came crashing in like a derailed freight train: horrifyingly quick with plenty of devastation. It was actually shocking that she hadn't felt him leave, considering he launched himself out of the bed as quickly as his muscles allowed him. The rest of his evening was spent pacing the parlor with a couple of elves trailing behind him asking their master what was wrong. His lack of an answer kept them following him like kittens as he stalked around the room, pondering his haphazard actions.

The worse part of it all was at some point, he could have sworn he'd heard Hermione utter that dreaded three word sentence, and against his better judgment he'd repeated it.

No, he didn't love Hermione Granger.

How could he possibly love her?

It wasn't like she was pretty, smart, witty, attractively innocent…_god damn it._ What the hell had she done to him? It was like her lips and saliva was like some sort of brain corroding agent, and he had fallen victim to the latest mudblood. Was this how they reproduced? By seducing a magical being into having passionate sex with them? No, no. That was silly –a child's assumption. He was a well educated young man…that had just fucked a mudblood. Though, in her defense (not that'd he'd rise too quickly to admit it) he had been the one to initiate and pressure her into everything. Then again, in his most justifiable defense, she'd gone along with it. All that would have needed to be said to stop it all was a firm 'no' and he'd have been off of her quicker than she could snap her fingers.

At least that's what he told himself to make him feel better about the entire situation.

Eventually tired from the massive amounts of pacing he'd done, Draco collapsed down on the couch and dozed off into a restless sleep as every single thought and regret that he had yet to consider lashed out at him in his attempted slumber. It wasn't until the soft hands of Pearl shaking him awake did he realize that he'd been twitching and thrashing violently in his half-sleep state. Shooting upright, he looked around wildly only to understand that he was not falling off a cliff that his father had pushed him off of. Taking several deep breaths he pushed his light blond hair out of his face and got up without a word to the house elf and stalked off to take a shower, hoping that the warm water on his body would do him some good.

Unfortunately, the second he stepped in the shower the image of Hermione's body popped into his head, quickly followed by some of her croons of devotion and love that she'd whispered to him the night before.

Once again, conscience-Hermione was rearing her ugly head and had unfortunately returned with a supercharged vengeance, aided by all the guilt that swirled around inside him like storm clouds. What had he done to deserve such mental torture? Leaning his head against the tiled wall, he let the water hit his back and did his best to count backwards from twenty, hoping that when he reached zero, her voice would be gone.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.

"_I shouldn't be saying this; but I love you, Draco._"

Taking in a sharp breath he pulled back from the wall and hurtled a bunched up fist at the glass that surrounded him in the shower instead,

"GOD DAMN IT!"

He watched with a slightly content gaze as shards of glass shattered down and scattered around him. Reaching over with a bloody hand, he shut the water off and gingerly stepped out. Pulling a towel over his lower half and reaching for his want, he quickly fixed the glass, and picked out the shards from his knuckles, but simply stood over the sink and watched as his blood dripped down his fingers and into the porcelain bowl, mixing with the running water. Swirls of red turned pink then disappeared down the drain. Strangely enough, he was satisfied to know that he still bled the same color (god forbid his blood suddenly turn brown simply for fucking a mudblood –it was again a childish, irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless). After standing there for a while he bandaged up his fist and put on some clothes. Glaring at his reflection in the mirror, he hardly noticed how much more gaunt his features had become. Whether from stress or simply from the fact that he hardly ate anymore, he wasn't sure –but the young man that stared back at him on the opposite side of the mirror was hardly the young boy he'd seen just a few months prior.

Once upon a time there'd been so much spark and promise in those molten silver eyes, now nothing but a hollow confusion remained.

Absentmindedly, he stroked the raised Dark Mark on his left arm and suddenly turned on his heal and headed out. If he was going to set this right, he needed to tackle the weed at its source: Hermione mother fucking Granger. Anything that the elves said to him or asked him on his way down to where her room was simply ignored, his one track mind hardly able to stay focused on why he was going to her in the first place. Loudly walking down the hallway when he arrived at her room, she looked up with a gaze of mixed confusion, surprise, and contempt as he shouted,

"Why did you do this to me?"

Obviously that was hardly the question she'd been expecting. Crossing her arms and standing up she sharply replied,

"Do _what_?"

"Why'd you tell me that you loved me?"

Her breath caught in her throat. That had most certainly been something she was worried he'd come attack her about. She had judged by his early departure that none of what they'd done sat easy on his already scarred conscience, but that question was definitely one she figured he'd spring on her later. Clearing her throat, she felt her face redden in embarrassment as she realized quickly that she had fooled herself into foolishly thinking he'd love her, and she truthfully replied in a hushed voice,

"Because I do love you…"

Apparently that was not the answer he had wanted, because he strode into the room and began to pace, throwing his hands up in the air,

"No! You don't love me, just like I don't love you. Society says that we can't, and we shouldn't. Besides, I'm going to die anyway, what points do you get for fucking the dying kid?"

He was hardly acting in a rational manner, glaring at him she snapped at him,

"_Society_ doesn't matter to me, Draco. And you can't tell me how I can and can't feel. If I say I want to love you, regardless of what the standard of our culture says, I'll say it. And we don't know for a fact that you're dying!"

Her naiveté and hope bothered him on a level he could hardly explain. Halting his pacing motion he turned to face her and shouted,

"We both know I'm going to die!"

Sheepishly, she looked away and murmured,

"Well when you say it like that…"

"Of course when I say it like _that_! I made an unbreakable vow which includes, in case you forgot, telling me information that you have already sworn you won't tell me _and_ me killing you!"

As strange as it sounded, Hermione did indeed forget that in order for him to survive she had to die, and at that very moment Harry's prophecy popped into her mind, and for some reason she felt like she understood exactly what Harry was going through, and pitied him.

But at least he didn't _love_ the other person that threatened his survival.

Wiping away a few stray tears, Draco quickly noticed them and barked at her,

"Don't tell me you're crying over all of this? Tell me, what did you think me sleeping with you meant?"

He talked to her in a way that made her feel like a child, made her believe that anything she told him would be inadequate and hardly justifiable. Yet, she also felt like she hardly cared at this point. Foolishly and against what was obviously her better judgment, she'd placed her heart in her hands and here she was standing there helpless watching him tear it into little tiny pieces mercilessly. Swallowing down her emotions she quietly explained,

"That…that we were together, or something. I thought that's how it worked…"

His silence was far worse than any taunting words he could throw at her, and his shocked gaze said it all, and as much as she didn't want to, he followed up his gaze with some fairly mocking words,

"Seriously, Granger? What the hell do you think this is? A movie? A fairytale? Do you even live in reality?"

Color rushed to her cheeks and she balled up her fists and stomped a foot like a toddler and shouted back,

"Do _you_ even live in reality, Malfoy?"

"Yes, I do! I know that sex isn't anything special."

Her mouth dropped at his confession,

"Well just because you feel that way doesn't mean I have to. I have been taught that it's something intimate and special you do…"

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but you've been lied to."

"No! You're the one that's been lied to…and I…I pity you!"

"Join the club of Draco Malfoy sympathizers, alongside my parents, who I'd like to remind you are _dead. _Please, let me give you a round of applause. You're such a motivational speaker."

"This isn't funny, Draco! This is serious, this is real life."

He snorted, "I'm well aware that this is serious and real life. In case you've forgotten in this short span of time, I'm going to _die_. This is as real as shit'll ever get."

At this point, she no longer tried to wipe away the tears that flowed freely down her rosy cheeks. How could he do this to her? Actually, she knew that he was doing it without much conviction, but she had spent a very long time searching for and finding the good in him, at this point she was frustrated and perplexed at how quickly it seemed like he was able to throw away his better half. More importantly, the half that she had grown to love.

The half that stood before her? She'd happily push in a bonfire.

The entire argument was making her sick to her stomach and light in the head, but she hardly wanted to sit down. Somehow, they'd grown closer to each other as they'd shouted, and now they stood but a mere foot apart. She could smell the soap of a fresh shower on him, and for the first time she noticed the bandage around his knuckles, but as she reached out to grab his hand he saw what she was going for and snatched his injured hand out of sight. Quickly changing the subject to his new injury, honest concern flooded her expression as she asked,

"What did you do?"

Gritting his teeth he admitted,

"I punched the glass of my shower."

As her mouth gaped open in a large 'o' of surprise, he honestly began to wonder how many rolls of parchment he could shove in there and whether or not she'd slap him if he dared to ask the question now. Quickly deciding that such an inquiry would undoubtedly lead to him getting injured in one way or another, he simply lifted his chin slightly and reassured her,

"It'll be fine."

Unfortunately she didn't buy his reassurance and she quickly grabbed his arm and pulled forth his hand so she could further scrutinize it. Pulling away the already bloodied bandages, her face reflected a look of mixed disgust and pity. Looking down at the mangled flesh, Draco finally noticed how bad it actually was, but again was hardly in the mood to play doctor with the mudblood and snatched his hand back, cradling it against his chest as nurse Granger scolded him,

"You need to get that checked out, Draco! It could get infected!"

He signed in an irritated manner and sharply replied,

"In case you've forgotten, there's a reason we, well I, have wands."

"Magic can't fix everything, Draco…"

"Says the mudblood raised by muggle parents."

His words hurt more than they should have, and she crossed her arms across her chest and seemingly cradled her torso as he pulled the gauze around his fist once more and snidely remarked,

"You changed the subject, Granger. Don't tell me you got tired of arguing your childish points of why we are what you think we are."

She glared at him and lifted her chin. It was hardly fair for him to pin such a thing on her, because as far as she was concerned, he was the _last_ person she'd hoped to find herself fancying. But the heart does what the heart wants, and what the heart wants the heart gets. Shaking her head she defiantly said,

"I don't care what you say, I care about you."

"And I don't care what you say, I don't care about you."

Patience worn thin as ice fractured once more beneath the weight of his rejection and tears unwillingly poured out from the corners of her eyes, streaking down her face and dripping off her chin. Hugging herself tighter she whispered,

"You don't mean it."

Looking at her strangely, as if worried (well he was worried) at how quickly her emotions changed, he said,

"You and I wouldn't work out in the outside world anyway. I told you that beyond the walls of this house we are nothing."

He began to retreat from the room, and her sobs grew louder as she stood there rooted in her place, already pleading with him (how could she possibly love someone that made her feel this way?),

"Please, don't say that. You don't know, we might set a trend…we…"

"I'm going to die, remember? How many times am I going to have to remind you of that?"

Slowly she sank to her knees, wanting to double over,

"No…don't go…"

He shook his head at her and turned to leave, hesitating when he heard her ask,

"Just…just say you love me."

He considered her request, and as much as his emotions begged him to just give in to the inevitable, his years of having the knowledge that mudbloods, halfbloods and blood traitors were dead to him tightened the noose around his neck and he suffocated on his words. Instead, he simply shook his head and walked out without saying anything in reply, and her choked sobs echoed down the hallway behind him.

How had they come to this? And more importantly, why was all of this so god damn hard for Draco to accept?

He found himself grieving over the situation (though much less publically than Hermione) as much as she did.

**A/N:** Daw. How ssssaaaaaaaddd. This is a lesson to everyone, kids. Don't sleep with your prisoners. Bad, confused feelings will erupt and you will punch glass and let your wounds fester and potentially grow gangrenous (wtf, who needs hands anyway?). AND. Someone mentioned that they'd like to see Draco tell Hermione the entire vow, I would just like to proudly say that I _totally_ had that planned out. SO NO WORRIES, BR0. Reviews are welcome, as always! Thanks for reading, lovelies! On another strange note, does anyone ever read my stupid little comments? xD


	17. In the orange sun rays

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_In the orange sun rays_

He sat with his head down on the empty dining room table, eyes shut tightly as he debated what to do.

Years of pro-pureblood brainwashing had suddenly been called into question. Growing up, it had been constantly drilled into his head that anybody of un-pure bloodlines was a dirty, filthy, backstabbing, stealing liar. He had been enlightened that mudbloods were no better than muggles who stole a wand. And halfbloods were the dimwitted offspring of those foolish enough to breed with a muggle. He'd been told that mudbloods were hardly bright enough to find their way out of a circle room.

Yet Hermione was one of the brightest girls he knew.

He'd been told that mudbloods smelled.

In Hermione's defense, he hardly let her shower regularly.

He'd been told that mudbloods could only be as trusted as far as you could throw them.

And yet, he felt like he'd trust Hermione with a lot more than he would with any pureblood wizard or witch that he knew. In fact, he already had.

How could an entire culture be so wrong about a people? He had hard evidence that hardly worked in the favor of what his parents had informed him of all throughout his childhood. What was worse, and positively the most troubling fact of any of this was that he had strong, undeniable feelings towards this particular mudblood. Every time he thought about it, his head grew fuzzy and his stomach turned. At the same time though, thinking about _her_ made him happy and content; but only if he looked past the fact that she was the kind of person his parents would have hated to even be in the same room as, that is. It was a hopeless romance, of that he kept reminding himself because soon one of them would be dead and then nothing would matter. He figured that with the death of the other half of what was happening, so too would the feelings die off.

Moral conflict was most certainly something that Draco could not deal with.

He was a set in stone kind of guy, whatever was told to him by people of good authority he believed. He took their word to heart and lived by it simply because forming his own opinion was not something he'd ever been allowed to experience. For example: Lucius spent a good eleven years training his son to be some sort of Neo-Nazi, anti-mudblood Death Eater minion and to spread the good word of the Pureblood. Not surprisingly, he did that with pride and followed what his father told him to do. Had he been given the chance to become his own person, maybe things would have turned out differently. Now someone was stepping all over those morals that kept him whole and making him do things that he'd never done before. Unfortunately, he was hardly convinced anymore that this wouldn't have happened if she'd never been around. Sooner or later he'd lose his grip on reality; he knew that he was spiraling.

He was trying so hard now to deny everything he felt, but he couldn't.

Purposely, he'd kept his distance from his prisoner for a couple days. He'd been hoping that the separation would clear his head and he'd begin to think straight. Too bad for Draco that he'd never quite heard the saying 'separation only makes the heart grow fonder'. The longer he spent away from her, the more he began to think about her. At night he'd wish she was there in his bed with him, he'd yearn her intellect and witty conversation. He was going crazy and he wanted it all to stop. He didn't want to feel like this, he just wanted to be Draco Malfoy, the boy who was going to die because he couldn't complete anything the Dark Lord put him up to. He didn't want to be Draco Malfoy, the boy who fell in love with Hermione Granger then died. Feeling like this made him want to fight for his survival, she was making him see that there was a world beyond the hate and intolerance he'd been so used to. It was unfair because just as he'd begun to accept his fate as marked for slaughter and finally convinced himself that there was truly nothing beyond what he'd seen, she proved him wrong.

Like she always did.

It also didn't help that her repeated words from previous conversations were echoing around in his head louder than before. It didn't matter what he did or what he said, her words were always there; silently judging him. She always knew what to say, too. Like if he ever caught himself wondering what society would be like if everyone was from the same parents, her words would pipe up with a very clever,

"Society_ doesn't matter to me, Draco._"

Even worse, it didn't help that whatever she'd say, he always found himself agreeing with her. And now here he was, all alone in his dining room with a house full of elves at his beck and call, memories he didn't want to remember, and a girl he was starting to unwillingly love.

Worst of all, she loved him back.

If it wouldn't hurt so bad, he'd bas his head against the table –it'd be better than the confusion he was feeling inside. Slowly sitting up he ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it. Why of all people in this bloody world did it have to be him to fall in love with the know it all mudblood? Was this the fate's cruel way of sticking it to him one last time and having one more hurrah before they lost him as their puppet forever? If that was indeed the case, then he deeply disapproved of that. Either way, whatever it was, he'd spent far too long denying it. Leaning back in the chair and sinking down, he chewed on his already short nails, staring out at nothing for a moment before taking his hand away from his mouth to shout,

"Pearl!"

Instantly the small female elf appeared by his side, looking at him with a questioning gaze, knowing that she should wait for her master to speak before speaking. He looked down at her for a moment before saying,

"Go see what the mudblood is doing. If she's asleep, don't wake her up."

"Yes sir," the little elf replied and in the short span of two minutes she was back and informing her master that: "the mudblood is indeed asleep. Is there anything else Master needs of Pearl?"

He waved her off and stood up; stretching his tired muscles he stalked down the hallway towards her room. As he neared his destination, his heart began to race and he grew inexplicably excited just to get to see her. When he arrived, he found her doing just what Pearl had said –sleeping. Quietly walking into the room and against his better judgment he crawled into her bed beside her. The way she was laying, she was facing him; this gave him a good opportunity to study her. Up close, again, he marveled at how much he could see. She looked so different than when she was first captured. There'd been a glow of youth that all persons her age had, but now it'd dulled away and the expressions on her face were generally those of deep concern or anger (no thanks to him, mostly). And yet, the few times he'd gotten her to genuinely smile she was so joyous –it always made him wonder how she could find such joy in the bleak world they'd been provided.

Draco was unsure of how long he laid there, but for some reason the time he lost doing absolutely nothing but creepily watch his lover sleep was hardly noticed. Like always, her presence had a silencing effect on the voice he heard in his head and all the troublesome thoughts he dealt with on a day-to-day basis. He was hardly willing to leave, but after a while he decided that if she woke up to him laying there he didn't exactly want to explain it. Before getting up, he leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against her forehead.

At the feeling of something against her skin, Hermione's brown eyes fluttered open. Senses once dulled by sleep began to sharpen up as she easily remembered where she was. Turning her head to the entrance of the room, she noticed a familiar figure trying to sneak out. Rubbing the sleep away from her eyes she sat up quickly and called (a little too loudly, and a little too hopefully),

"Draco?"

The person froze and turned around slowly to face her. It was like she was falling in love all over again. Past his gaunt features and ashen skin (things she knew had only manifested in him because of all that had been happening in the last year), she could see a similarly hopeful person shining out from behind those soulless grey eyes. Her heart skipped a beat as he took a few steps back into the room. It was the first time in what felt like forever that he'd actually come to see her. Hardly having the strength to still be angry at him, it didn't matter if he was just here to tell her that he hated her, she just wanted to be in the same room as him. Sitting up a little more in the bed, she folded her arms across her middle section and hesitantly asked,

"What…are you doing here?"

He looked at her for a moment, still quiet, still calculating as ever then dully replied,

"I was going to come tell you that I've taken down the wards to your room –you're free to roam the house, but nowhere else."

What she didn't know was that the wards had been down since the day she got tortured, and he'd hardly come to tell her that, it'd just been something to say as a lie rather than the truth (as usual). Shaking her head slightly, she gaped at him. The only two places she'd seen of the house were this room and the bathroom and the sudden idea of getting to see more of what she'd pegged as a splendidly decorated house (because she had to find the good in something) was truly a shocking bit of news. More importantly, she could feel him slowly giving up the fight against his fate, and that saddened her. Swallowing she said,

"Oh. Um, thank you, Draco."

Crossing his arms he shrugged and said,

"Yeah, don't mention it. Not that I can understand why you're so excited. It's not like you're free."

She hadn't expected his defensive nature to creep in so quickly, but she accepted it anyway and decided not to comment on it (at this point, she was simply glad he was talking to her). As usual, his condescending tone made her feel like a child and she sheepishly looked away from him to quietly explain herself (because she always felt like she had to explain what she did to him),

"I've been in this same room for what feels like a lifetime now. A house that you know like the back of your hand is a whole new thing to entertain me while I'm here. You wouldn't understand, and I don't expect you to."

Instead of actually saying anything to her, he simply nodded and a terse silence fell between them. Shifting uncomfortably under the covers, she fidgeted with the seam on the quilt that'd been given to her a few weeks back by one of the house elves to stay warm with, not entirely sure what to say to him now. Well, she _had_ things to say to him, but she was now spending her silence wondering whether or not he'd receive them as well as she hoped. They were mostly explanations of apologies for getting so out of hand, things to say that would hurt her. But it seemed the longer she waited, the more distant he grew in the conversation; he'd already taken a few steps backwards towards the door again. Taking a breath she went to speak,

"Draco, I-"

However, he put up a hand to stop her and simply said,

"Just don't say anything. I'm better off when you keep that mouth of yours shut."

The abrupt manner in which he shut her down left her silenced as he excused himself from the room. Left alone again, she felt the disappointment pressing in around her from all sides. Still stunned by his actions, she timidly worked her way towards the archway. Testing to see if his words had any merit to them, she stuck her arm outside of the room. Seeing that it didn't fall off the second she tried, her heart leapt up to her throat. It was just one more 'good' thing he was doing for her that she could add to her list of 'reasons why it's ok to love Draco Malfoy'. Suddenly, her sadness ebbed away and was replaced by a sense of new beginnings. This was the closest she'd gotten to freedom in months. Taking a couple running steps into the hallway she looked around with bright eyes, how wonderful the hallway looked! She'd never loved seeing paintings that weren't the blank frames she endured in her room more. This was one step to freedom.

_And,_ she told herself, _one step closer to Draco._

**A/N:** ...LOL LATE UPDATE. My b, so sorry...I suddenly got a life for a few days (HOW WEIRD). I would now like to make a shout out to **aringle42** and her incredibly kind words of ' I cannot believe this story hasn't got at least 500 reviews. It's awesome.' :'D Lady. You brought tears to my eyes, it's people like you and all the other 22 other people who have reviewed this story and sent me nothing but kind words and ~love~ that make me want to keep writing. 500 reviews would be _awesome_, don't get me wrong, but I'm happy with the small little fanbase we've got going on here. But, I really do love hearing back from you guys; but adding this story to your alerts or favorites is good too C:_ HOWEVER. _That doesn't mean I'm not gonna tell you at the end of this to...REVIEW, BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO AND YOU LOVE ME :D_  
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	18. He dips his wings

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

_He dips his wings_

To explain exactly how Hermione felt about finally being allowed to wander around the Malfoy Manor with a fairly long leash of freedom, it would be best to equate her actions to a kid in a candy shop with a never ending supply of money. For the first few days, she was on a never ending exploration adventure, every nook and cranny of the house was privy to her unending search for knowledge. Every secret passage way, every book in the library touched at least once, the kitchen had been raided several times (much to the displeasure of the house elves), she'd explored everything that Draco allowed her to and she obeyed him when he said that she was not allowed in any of the upstairs rooms –she respected his desire for privacy. However, as the days of her freedom wore on, she started to grow tired of her new surroundings and once more began to pine for her release from her prison. Sure, the short time of mostly unbridled freedom had been more than she could have asked for lately, but there was nothing she could do that could keep her from longing for home and the comfort of her friends and family, it was only natural. It was a dull burning in her stomach, like a slowly healing wound that simply kept getting salt in it. Not to mention her recent downturn in her mood was hardly remedied by Draco's lack of presence, it was like he felt that now that she was out of her cage and given many new ways to entertain herself, he thought he was hardly needed –even though now that she could move freely about the house she wanted him now more than ever.

What she did not know was that as she danced around the house like a convict given a second chance, Draco was seriously considering just killing her. Of course, deep down he knew that such an option was hardly anything he would even mull over in the end, but topically he just wanted her dead. She was no good to him, and he was going to die with her alive anyway –at least that was his half-hearted attempt to argue his otherwise invalid, useless point. The sad thing was, he was just miserable and simply didn't know how to fix it, and pretty much assumed that the mudblood was the root of all his trifles (even though she made him happier than he's ever felt in a very, very long time). There was so much contradiction in how he felt about her.

One minute he loved her.

The next he hated her guts.

One day he woke up and wanted to be around her.

Another day he wanted nothing to do with her.

His attraction to her was poisonous to their health and mental wellbeing, not to mention that it was a vicious cycle that was tearing both of them into little pieces that would soon hardly be recognizable to anyone; friend or foe. Grappling with life-long morals was hardly an easy thing for Draco, especially since he was fairly morally compromised already; as if that sixth year at Hogwarts had done anything to help any of this. Sometimes, when he thought back to that year (which felt more like a lifetime ago than a short year) he recoiled at the thoughts of how many times others had tried to help him off the path he'd been set on. He had been given a way out so many times and yet he'd turned his arrogant nose up at them –but all he'd wanted to do was to make his parents proud. He wanted to prove to his father that he _was_ worthy of being a Malfoy, and he wanted to see his mother swollen with pride that she'd birthed him, he wanted them to praise him for being such a good little Death Eater. Of course, now everything he'd ever been striving for had been shot with his colossal failure to complete one simple task. The only two people he'd ever cared about impressing or looking good to were dead and he was stuck with a hand-me-down problem, raggedy house elves, a house that creaked just a little too loudly at night, and a stubborn mudblood that he was unfortunately and admittedly in love with.

Needless to say, with his recent decision to let her simply roam the manor as she saw fit, Hermione was still slightly suspicious of his motives. Even though he had promised to give up his endeavors of berating, or otherwise torturing her for any information she had on Harry and Ron, she knew that Malfoy's word was sometimes only as good as his mood was on any given day. Granted, he had done a good deal of making her trust him (actually, she trusted him more than she probably should; so said her more cautious sense) and he had also done a very good job of making her love him –even though to her 'love' seemed like a strange word for the situation, but being a human-thesaurus she had hardly found any other word to suit her feelings towards him. When he had announced that she was free to move about the castle and leave the dreary confines of her imprisoning room, her trusting side rejoiced and ran amok, convinced that he was finally showing some sort of affection towards her that wasn't just list, but then there was her paranoid side. It told her not to trust his actions, and that he'd been playing her the whole time. Frankly, she was torn in two and while she'd been quick to just accept that he was giving up on life (though not something she was too terribly happy with), she also remembered her senses and hardly ate a nibble more than what she was given for food for the next few days and generally avoided any questions directed towards her. And it was that nagging suspicion and annoying paranoia that brought her to the library, where she found him with his nose stuck in an old book and sprawled out on one of the worn antique couches,

"Draco… why did you let me out of my room?"

It appeared that both the question and her presence startled him, for his head jerked up quickly and his pupils dilated for a moment as if he had expected her to be someone else (maybe someone like his trigger-happy aunt, Bellatrix) before he narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin haughtily and spat at her with an air of what she could only pinpoint as emotional pain and sadness (perhaps upset that she'd even dared to ask such a foolish question that she was 99% certain she knew the answer to),

"Why not? It seemed like the right thing to do."

She furrowed her brow. As kind as his attempts at reformation seemed to be, and as desperately as she wanted to believe that he'd simply done it out of the greater good and the kindness in his heart, she timidly walked over to the couch, moved his legs to the floor and sat beside him. Looking into his worn stormy grey eyes she said,

"I want to believe that's why you did it."

Draco seemed a bit hurt at her distrust and closed the book and said,

"Then believe me. It's not that hard, you've been doing it for a full month now, have you not?"

She shrugged at his inquiry, "well, I suppose I have…but this almost seems too good to be true. Like this is all just a wolf in sheep's clothing, waiting to take me down the second I let my guard down. I trust you, Draco, I do. But I don't trust what other people want _you_ to do and what lengths you'll go to find their favor."

"I feel like we've had this conversation already, Hermione." (It always left her dumbstruck and strangely giddy when he actually used her name!)

"Well, we have. But you keep putting me off. I just want to know…I just want to know that you're not going to try anything, or that you haven't tried anything. All I ask is a moment of genuine honesty, for me?"

He hardly seemed pleased at her request, huffing he pressed against the back of the couch, the old piece of furniture creaked beneath his added pressure, and looked away from her. She studied him from the side and marveled at his features; his chiseled jaw that led to a fairly pointy chin, thin lips that seemed to be pulled thinner from concentration, a nose that seemed almost a little crooked, and deep set eyes that only made him look even more brooding than he already was. Every time he fell into a silent bit of thought, Hermione wondered what he was thinking about –she wanted to go to whatever dark corner of his mind there was that kept him going down the wrong path, like a never dying battery, and brighten it up. She wanted to show him that there was more to the world than other's approval. Unfortunately, he was hardly open with her about anything; and for a moment it seemed like he wasn't even going to grant her one request of being told the truth just this once. That is, she assumed that before he turned to gaze at her with a deeply serious look in his eye and spoke with an even tone as he explained,

"I am going to admit that I had been feeding you veritaserum for a while, but every time I came up with the right question to ask that would answer everything I needed to know in one quick reply, I lost my nerve. I had truly only been-"

His words were swiftly cut off as Hermione had risen to stand before him and slapped him with all of her might. A little confused but hardly having much will to fight back he simply sat there like a scolded puppy as she erupted with the temper that had him wrapped around its finger,

"How dare you! I trusted you, Draco! I trusted you with my heart and my body and that's how you repay me? By going back on your promise? What kind of person are you? Are you even a person? No. I don't think that you are. You are a withered shell of a cowardly man who hides behind the orders of what others tell him to do, hoping that their power will protect him from any major windfall. You are someone who is afraid of failing, even just once –and when faced with what you think might be someone's lack of approval towards you, you run and stick your head so far up their ass kissing up that you hardly know which way is left or right! I can't believe…."

Suddenly, her voice had been choked away from her as a wave of emotions over took her angry demeanor. Tears flooded down her cheek as she stood there. She had been played like a fool this whole time. Simply sitting there, rubbing the glowing red mark on his pale skin, Draco looked away from her as she lost control of her emotions and quietly went on to finish what he'd started to say,

"I had truly only been doing it out of fear of what would happen to me. I didn't want to die, I really didn't, but shortly after we…um," he fell quiet, as if ashamed to admit out loud what they'd done, "after we…_slept_ together, I realized that I had embarked on a journey that I didn't want to go on. I had bitten off more than I could chew, and even if I did get the information that the Dark Lord wanted from you, I couldn't have finished my vow."

Through her tears, she looked at him with an extremely pained and bewildered look. She had always assumed that there was only one part of the vow he'd made, but the way he spoke it was as if there was more than one act to this horrible play. Stumbling over her words and speaking with a watery, wavering voice she dared to ask in a breathless whisper,

"Why can't you finish your vow, Draco?"

The conviction that filled his eyes was enough to break her heart and melt the anger that she'd felt towards him. In that very moment, she knew full well that he had honestly meant no harm (even if she wanted to pin every bad thing that'd been happening to her on him, she just couldn't) and had truly tried to keep to his promise to her. The held their stare for a few moments without blinking before Draco broke the contact and looked away. Perplexed and pained, Hermione collapsed beside him and gingerly took his face in her hands, turning his head towards her, she asked again in a kinder voice (one that reflected that of a mother's concern),

"What is it?"

Shame flooded his voice as he whimpered, "you might have thought that when I said that I have to kill you to complete my vow that I was kidding, but I wasn't lying…"

**A/N:** OH MY GOD. I FEEL SO SHITTY FOR THIS BEING SO LATE D8 but life and a new roommate decided to eat me up whole. SORRY FOR THE CLIFFY, I KNOW I SUCK /shot, please review, as always c:


	19. And dares to claim the sky

CHAPTER NINETEEN

_And dares to claim the sky_

Shock.

It slowly numbed every bone, every vein, fiber and sense in her body as his words sunk into her skin like a biting cold winter breeze.

The first time Draco had told her that he had to kill her to complete his vow; she had simply assumed that he had said such a nasty thing out of pure anger, considering she'd gotten him pretty riled up at that time. But now, there was no denying the seriousness in his voice. Much to her great dismay, he _hadn't_ simply said it to upset her, he'd said it truthfully. With a mouth as dry as a desert she managed to croak out,

"You….really have to _kill_ me?"

Fear.

It paralyzed her, it sucked the happiness from her heart and stopped it from beating and made her veins freeze over.

Even in such a dire situation as the one she'd found herself in, she'd hardly even considered death as any sort of outcome or consequence. However, with the merit to his earlier threats now added, there was a great sinking feeling in her stomach. While she trusted Draco, sometimes she found herself wary of how far he'd go just to survive. Survival instincts, after all, were the strongest instincts humans had –magically inclined or not. In denial, she shook her head vigorously. No! It couldn't be…

Anger.

It burned through the ice of the fear and brought feeling back to her limbs that the shock had sucked away.

After all this time, he had known that he had to kill her and he'd never told her the truth? His betrayal of her fragile trust hurt almost more than the thought of dying did. She had sat there while a diverse range of emotions danced across her gaunt features, silence wrapped around them like a thick blanket, and almost muffled out every other little noise in the mansion, from the constant creaking of the old house to the occasional scurrying of a house elf. Hermione held Draco's face in her hands for quite some time, forcing him to look at her and giving her a chance to search those endless grey eyes for some sign of remorse. Digging her fingers into the soft skin of his porcelain face she snarled,

"Why don't you just kill me now?"

Realization.

For being labeled the 'smartest witch of their age', Hermione suddenly felt helpless.

It wasn't until now that she realized how much of her life was at the mercy of this fickle, emotionally compromised teenage boy with a wand and short temper. For a brief moment she wondered if all this time he'd simply been fattening her up for slaughter or something; but it was like Draco could either see the fear and apprehension in her eyes or simply knew what she was thinking and reassured her with a small voice,

"I'm…I'm not going to kill you, Hermione."

Shamelessly, relief flooded her chest and stopped the tempestuous churning of her uneasy stomach. As the paralyzing fear, anger, and shock subsided into dull throbs, she began to think clearly. All previous assumptions of him getting ready to kill her had been childish and uncalled for. If Draco had intended to kill her, or so her reasonable side argued, he would have let Bellatrix finish her off as she had planned to when the extensive use of the Cruciatus curse had done little to break her resolve against spilling any little detail about what Harry and Ron were doing. Sitting there for a moment, she mulled over his words (rather, the tone that he'd said them in). If he wasn't going to kill her now (or any time in the near future as she assumed), then what on earth was keeping him from just letting her go? Other than his seemingly indomitable spirit and will to survive and live beyond the dark shadows he was living in now, that is. Pondering silently, it seemed like Draco needed a reason to cover some face and he hastily and stubbornly declared,

"It's not because I like you or anything."

He sounded like a five year old child to Hermione, trying to justify to the classroom teacher that, no, he wasn't pulling that girl's hair because he liked her. Finally letting go of his face, she eyed him –fighting back the frustration that threatened to rise up in her and devour any rational thought. Yes, it was irritating that after all they'd _done_ together; he was still denying that there was anything between then (because there certainly is!) –but just because he was being a head strong prick didn't mean that she should let her temper get the better of her…

"Oh, so it's because you like having a mudblood pet, then?"

So much for tolerance. Draco stared at her slightly wide-eyed then allowed is own expression to match the frustration in her own and she was fairly certain that if he were standing, he'd have stomped his foot and crossed his arms by now. His voice was smoothly acidic as he snapped back at her,

"You're right, it's because I like having a mudblood pet."

It took a slight moment for Hermione to realize that he was being sarcastic, and while she knew that he was simply being an ass (not much of a shocker) now about it, she scooted away from him and sent him a molten glare and responded with her own biting tone,

"Why can't you just let me go? Your precious Dark Lord," she sneered, "is going to kill you anyway when he finds out that I didn't give you shit to go off of."

His silence was probably more irritating to her than any smart mouthed remark that he could come up with. The fact that he simply sat there gawking at her like a troll with brain damage made her want to punch him in the face –again. By the look in his eyes, she could tell that he could tell that she was aggravated by his silence and after a few agonizingly long moments of no reply he sighed a short, quick sigh and drawled,

"I don't know why I can't let you go. Happy?"

Hardly 'happy' with his answer she snapped back,

"No, I'm not happy! I haven't been happy since I arrived here!"

"I thought you were at least a little appreciative with what I've done for you!"

Grinding her teeth in irritation she spat,

"Yes, I'm _appreciative_ that you haven't let me starve this whole time, and yes I'm glad that you let me out of my cage, but I can hardly say I'm genuinely happy with the entire situation."

Obviously that was not the right answer, and like any selfish captor, Draco failed to understand the gravity of her feelings towards the predicament and predictably lost what was left of his cool,

"After _everything_ I've done for you? I could have let Bellatrix kill you; I didn't _have_ to let you have showers. I could have simply left you to rot in that room, I didn't need to feed you descent meals or food at all –and worst of all I let you sleep with me!"

That was the last straw for Hermione's self-restrain as she jumped up quickly and screeched at him,

"HOW DARE YOU BRING THAT UP IN SUCH A MANNER," for a quick moment, Draco almost looked shocked that she finally lost her temper completely and she continued to rage on like an unrelenting storm, "I HONESTLY THOUGHT YOU HAD GOTTEN PAST THAT CHILD-LIKE DEMEANOR ON THAT SUBJECT!"

Surprise kept Draco silent, like a hand against his vocal cords, and all he really managed to squeak out was a pathetic, "no…"

"No? No to the fact that you brought up a subject I thought that we had settled, or no because you're not over being a scared little child that's afraid of doing _anything_ different?"

For a brief moment Hermione's voice lowered to a strangled choke spit out between tightly clenched teeth as she fought back her emotions, trying to calm herself down, but for some reason she couldn't rope in her temper as it blazed wildly out of control; a wildfire in the middle of a drought –devouring anything hopeful. Every now and then, Draco would give her expressions that she might have mistaken for fear if she didn't know Draco Malfoy any better than she did. Clenching her teeth, the anger radiated off of her like a wave, almost making her seem to glow red; if such a thing was possible. After all the talks they'd had about 'what had happened' (at least, that's how Draco preferred to put it because when it came to _the issue_ he was like a five year old child). Finally, she managed to find a little bit of Zen in the middle of her stormy emotions and took several deep breaths before saying,

"We've talked about this, and I know you know that because you were there. What happened just…happened. It wasn't anyone's fault."

She felt like she was comforting someone who ran over their dog accidentally…except, Draco Malfoy had _accidentally_ fucked Hermione Granger and the emotional aftermath was what one would declare a disaster zone. If anything, he'd gotten less emotionally stable since that day and hardly any better since, even with Hermione's sympathetic actions (or rather, her attempt at being sympathetic) towards him. She mostly understood what he was going through –but still, it was finally getting on her nerves and she was fed up with all the shit he was throwing at her just because he wanted to be a little kid and didn't want to deal with it. At least once in his life, she'd like to see him take responsibility over his actions; especially now since he didn't have dearest daddy to write to when he wanted something he didn't like changed. It was high time the spoiled Slytherin prince learned how to act like a normal human being who did shit himself (even if he was being taught by a mudblood). Slowly, the anger had begun to reside and in the silence, Draco vehemently snorted a reply now that he thought she was less likely to strangle him if he talked back,

"It was your fault."

Just like that, the match had been put to gasoline once more and she turned on him, not even thinking of her next actions her arm reared back and quickly slapped him across the face. The first blow stunned him and lit his own fire of resentment as he snarled and felt the glowing red hand mark on his face rather than saw it. She prepared to strike again, but as her hand went back he stood up quickly and caught her wrist. Twisting her arm and forcing her into submission, she fell to her knees and cried out. This was the first time that he'd ever tried to physically hurt her, but the louder her cries the more revenged he felt about the handprint on his face that probably stuck out like a sore thumb amidst his pale skin. A snarl pulled his lips back as he snapped,

"Don't. Hit. Me."

He might have feelings for her, he might have slept with her, fed her, let her shower, let her roam his house –but there was one thing that he would not tolerate from her and that was her hitting him. After all, they'd had this issue before and he assumed that she'd gotten the lesson the last time she tried to hit him, but not all dogs learn tricks quickly. There was genuine fear in Hermione's brown eyes as they looked up into his grey ones. He knew that she was thinking about the second part of his vow and he growled and threw her arm to the side and took a few steps backwards, not wanting to even be near her anymore (and slightly embarrassed that he'd lost his temper like that). She sat there kneeling on her knees rubbing her wrists and looking at him like an abused animal would –big watery eyes with an expression that mingled between fear and loathing. Thinking back to what they'd even started arguing about, he felt stupid for reacting to such a situation. Granted, the whole betraying his family blood by even seeing a mudblood naked thing was still a sore subject, but he had honestly gotten over the sex itself. Truly, he'd let the stress of the last week pile up on him then flood out onto Hermione the second the dam broke. However, he was hardly inclined to rush to her side and see if she was ok. Instead he crossed his arms and turned his head to the side, viewing her out of the corner of his eye as he apologetically drawled,

"Sorry…didn't mean to, you know. Do _that._"

She looked at him with an apprehensive expression as a few rogue tears that betrayed her otherwise brave face and softly asked,

"Why are you so upset?"

He set his jaw stubbornly, he didn't exactly like it when she asked stupid questions to which she knew she already had the answer. Judging by her lack of a follow up question, he figured that she had simply asked to see if he had a different reason (maybe the reason she had wasn't a very nice one –though all things considered, his reason wasn't all that nice or justified to begin with). However, he felt the need to redeem himself and with careful steps he made his way back towards the couch and sat down as far away as he could as she crawled back up onto the couch, cradling her arm the entire time and shooting him apprehensive looks. Opening his mouth a few times, he noticed no sound came out as he tried to say something. Finally, on what felt like the millionth attempt he quietly said,

"I'm just…I'm just really stressed. I could wake up any day and the entire Inner Circle could be sitting at my dining room table ready to all point their wands at me and end me."

Though not exactly buying his reason, she nodded slightly and reached out to grab his hand and shot him a hurt look as he snatched it away. Cradling her torso, she rocked back and forth slightly on the couch before daring to ask,

"Draco, what was the exact vow?"

He looked at her from the side of his vision and snorted,

"Why do you want to know, morbid curiosity?"

She furrowed her brow at him,  
>"No, I'm genuinely interested in his exact words because there might, you know, be some sort of loophole…"<p>

He 'tsked' at her and shook his head sadly, finally looking at her full on with a gaze that mixed between adoration, pity, and sadness,

"I doubt there's anything you can do for me at this point, Granger. Other than tell me what Weasely and Potter are up to and then let me kill you. And if you did, then you'd be a very self-sacrificing mudblood."

She chewed on her lip for a moment before quietly saying,

"Just…tell me the vow, Draco."

He rolled his eyes and spoke in an irritated voice that might have been an impression of Voldemort's (or a dying banshee, either one would have worked),

"_'Will__ you, Draco, do everything within your power to siphon the knowledge of what this captive mudblood has of Potter's whereabouts and doings and keep her imprisoned without her escaping? And will you, when the time comes and you've gotten all you need from this girl, dispose of her in a proper manner?_'"

Glaring at her as he finished up he snapped,

"And that's it. After that he left me to drown in my parent's blood. What could you possibly gain from knowing the entire vow anyway?"

Hermione wore a thoughtful look as she seemingly began to memorize the words of the vow. Finally she confidently said,

"Well, it'll take a little bit of research, but he wasn't very specific on the finer points of that vow, was he? There are some loopholes we might be able to work with that would satisfy the magic and him and then you could live and I could take you to somewhere safe, somewhere within the Order."

At the thought of receiving help from the Order, Draco visibly recoiled and spat,

"I don't need help!"

She simply shot him a 'are you joking?' look and crossed her arms. She was trying to be serious and he was busy acting like a child _again_. Gritting her teeth she sourly said,

"Do you want to live or not? I'm trying to find ways to help you be alive to see your eighteenth birthday, in case you forgot that if you just go about your own devices you might not live to see next week."

He visibly relaxed slightly at her words and reluctantly said,

"Fine…let me know when you come up with something _good_, but I only want shit on the vow, mention your precious Order again and I swear I will barf on your feet and not let you wash them off."

Slightly elated that he was going to let her at least help him get past vow she nodded and said,

"Well, obviously it's going to take a little bit of research, because I need proof that it's been done before, but I'm fairly certain if we find the right loophole, it will work out."

Without saying anything, she bustled out of the room and headed to God knew where, leaving Draco alone. Leaning forward he placed his head in his hands and sighed heavily and then stalked off to his room.

He hardly kept track of how long it was taking the mudblood to 'research' stupid unbreakable vows, because the second his body hit the plush mattress of his bed he had fallen in and out of sleep and horrifying nightmares. If she was taking several hours, he wouldn't have known. He didn't even know that she'd been searching for him for at least an hour and after looking behind every door and in every broody, dark and shadowy corner she had stood at the base of the stairs that lead up to the non-guest bedrooms and a few other room she wasn't sure of, debating how mad he'd be if she barged in on him in his room or if the happiness of knowing that there was a possible way out of all of this would override any anger he'd feel. In fact, he was hardly aware that she'd been standing at the doorway of his room for several silent minutes as she watched him toss and turn in bed, moaning in a dream-state agony.

Apprehension from the anger that'd follow from waking him up kept her standing quietly at the door with a book clutched to her chest. She rocked back and forth uncertainly on the ball of her foot. Finally, after the second (or maybe it was the third) cry of sleep-fear, she timidly entered his room and stalked to the side of his bed. A gentle hand reached out to shake his shoulder lightly. The second she made contact with his oddly cold shoulder he jolted awake and leapt out of bed, his hand reaching for her throat, shouting in surprise she managed to choke out,

"Draco! Draco, it's me! Hermione!"

Recognition flooded his eyes as the sleep wore away and his fingers slackened their grip around her throat. Rubbing what was sure to be a bruise later she stepped forward and carefully sat at the edge of his bed, watching him with a quiet gaze as he paced his room, clearly troubled by something. Worried she asked,

"What was the dream about?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth over and over, obviously not really wanting to answer her question. Finally, after what felt like hours of watching him pace, he finally stopped to look at her and reluctantly sat down beside her on the bed, falling down onto the oddly plush mattress like a ton of bricks, making the frame shake and creak with the sudden force. For the second time of the day, Hermione reached for his hand and he yanked it away. Frowning at him she gingerly questioned,

"What is wrong with you, Draco?"

Leveling his troubled gaze with her concerned one he timidly replied,

"I'm…I don't want to die and I don't want to lose you."

Setting the book aside, figuring that her find could wait until after she'd quelled her lover's fears she scooted closer to him (slightly shocked that he allowed the increased contact) and placed her head on his shoulders, wrapping her arms around his ribcage in something that represented a hug and said,

"I'm working on that, you just have to trust me."

Before she knew it, his lips were on hers. It was a heated kiss, the kind that had warmed her entire body up the first time they'd kissed like this, something that she swore she could feel every time she thought about it. Eager to respond, her own senses came alive as she returned the kiss, pressing deeply into his lips, their tongues tangling in each other's mouths and wrestling for the upper hand. She was hardly uncooperative as he pushed her down onto the mattress, the overly-stuffed duvet poofed up around her like a cloud. Heat transpired between their clothes and she arched her back to shove her chest up into his and thrust her hips against his. She had truly missed the passion he showed in this mood and had only seen it once –to Hermione she wished he could show her this side more often than the one she seemingly dealt with on a daily basis. Inquisitive hands traced every inch of each other's bodies, curious explorers remembering old hiking trails as they traced muscles and hip bones. Shirts were quickly shed, followed by her bra, pants and panties, his pants and boxers.

To Hermione, it was just as good the second time as it was the first.

Afterwards, they laid there in a tangle of naked limbs and twisted sheets. Cradled in his arms, she had her ear pressed up against his chest and was listening to the sound of his heart beating. It truly pained her to think that if she failed on her new task, that heart would no longer do its job and without it the rest of his body would fail and die and then she'd be alone. Silence persisted between them for several long minutes (or maybe it was hours) but when it was finally broken, it was Draco who uttered the first words, his voice was soft and almost pleading,

"Hermione…can I ask you to do something for me?"

Looking up at him from where she lay, she offered him a small smile and reached up to brush her lips across his and whispered,

"Anything," she was hardly thinking about what could be coming from him, especially when he used such a tone of voice.

Screwing up his face slightly before pushing the hair out of her eyes he asked with a certain bold edge to his voice,

"If…if we make it out of this alive, could _please_ not tell anyone what we did?"

For some reason, Hermione knew that she should be angry at him for such a bigoted question, but hardly had the energy to fight him anymore –but that didn't mean she couldn't feel upset about it. At the thought of not being able to be with him if they made it through this, a few stray tears leaked down her cheeks and he quickly wiped them away and hushed her silent sobs and said,

"Maybe, until after the war is over, like if Potter wins and pureblood-mudblood couples are more accepted…"

Choked, she whispered,

"Why does it still matter so much to you?"

He wished he could answer her truthfully with a good answer, but the fact was that he was afraid to defy the standards that had been set before him and was worried what other's would say about him behind his back. He wanted to know that such thinking was greatly diminished and maybe even frowned upon before he went about pursuing Hermione. Sighing he said,

"I honestly don't' know, Hermione. And I'm sorry that it's upset you, but I feel like any attention to you or I if we make it through this will only bring more bad to us than good."

Still not exactly wanting to see his side of reason she sobbed,

"Why can't you just come with Harry, Ron, and I? I'm sure they'd accept you…"

"Don't be silly, Granger. They hate me as much as I hated you and still hate them. It wouldn't be good. I am safer with the Death Eaters than against them until the war is over. Trust me…I'm doing to protect you…" he fell silent for a moment and pressed his lips against her forehead, "I'm doing it because I love you."

**A/N:** WELL. Not as quick as my other updates, but here we are, chapter nineteen! Um, updates are gonna come a little more slowly like this because le college is starting back up and what not. But we are close to being finished with this story, SO YAAAYY. As always, your ~REVIEWS~/comments are _**much**_ appreciated :D


	20. I know why the caged bird sings

CHAPTER TWENTY

_I know why the caged bird sings_

It had been absolutely gratifying to finally hear him admit that he loved her, even though she should know better than to think that any pillow talk coming from Draco post-sex would be anything but credible. Regardless, a small smile spread across her lips and bringing an arm out of the tangled sheets she pushed his messy blond hair out of his considerably emotional grey eyes and couldn't quite find her voice for a moment. All she could do was sit there and stare, after a few comfortable seconds of silence she said,

"I've always known that you love me."

Draco, predictably, let out a defensive laugh and playfully said, "it's not like you gave me much of a choice, hardly leaving me alone and giving me a moment to collect my thoughts."

Sticking out her tongue and yawning she sleepily retorted back, "please, _you_ wouldn't leave _me_ alone –that's how I recall it."

She thought silently for a moment then put on a big grin while Draco wore an expression of confused suspicion and asked, "what, Granger?"

"You said it first."

"I said what first?"

"You said the 'l' word first."

He opened his mouth to argue then shut it; she was right. He _had_ said it first, but strangely enough he'd hardly felt like those words had been hollow like they had been so many other times when he was just saying it to get a girl to shut the fuck up. When he'd told Hermione he loved her, he realized that he had actually meant it. There was a gaping, aching hole in his heart and she was slowly but surely filling it. She gave him hope and she gave him happiness. In all honesty, he was happier than he'd been in an extremely long time, and while the worrisome thoughts of his vow still weighed heavily on his mind, the prospect of having Hermione possibly find a loophole in his vow put his tempestuous mind to rest and allowed him to think about other things; things like what would exactly happen between them when the war was over (if it ever ended) and if they both made it out of this alive. At this point, he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life with her. Yes, she was a bit difficult to deal with on occasional and bloody annoying when she wanted her way –but she brought a fire to a roaring blaze in his heart that he had never felt before and wanted more of it. If this is what love is, he wouldn't mind living with it for the rest of his life.

In the profound silence that had followed his failed attempt to argue back, he realized that Hermione had been looking at him a little oddly. Leaning forward he kissed her gently and said with a tired tone in his voice,

"You're right. I did say it first, but why haven't you said it yet? Isn't it generally the girl that says it first?"

Thinking for a moment she shrugged slightly and settled down farther into the mattress, "I don't know. Maybe because most guys run away quicker than a frightened cat when a girl says it first."

"Well, I think since I said it first, you should say it."

Laughing quietly she shook her head adamantly and meekly admitted, "no, I like to hear you say it. Say it again?"

Realizing that her request was more of a question than a demand he pulled her closer to him, and whispered, "I love you."

As much as she tried to tell herself that he was just saying 'I love you' to make her happy and send her off to sleep so he could presumably slip out of the bed and probably go sleep on the couch in the living room, she couldn't help but fall asleep repeating those three little words over and over in her head as she pressed closer into him. Her dreams, for once, were content and hardly full of any worry. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was good enough, like there was no need to improve on what was already there because what was there was as perfect as it could already be.

Draco, however, found that he had a hard time slipping off into sleep as easily as Hermione did. Rather, he sat there and listened to the sounds of her breathing and as the world around them grew quiet with slumber and the house stilled, the hopelessness of nothing working out and all their attempts failing and in the end he still died returned with a vengeance. So many questions of doubt fired up in his head and sounded off like gunshots, drowning out the light 'whooshing' noise that came from Hermione's peaceful sleep breathing.

What if Voldemort didn't believe him?

What if Voldemort killed Hermione?

What if Bellatrix came back and killed them both?

What if Hermione escaped and he died?

What if he just let her go?

Well, with all of those questions the answer was that he'd die –obviously.

So many 'what if' scenarios, and he desperately wanted to get up and pace nervously like a caged animal, but he feared waking up Hermione, and from there he could just feel her asking him what was wrong and inevitably a fight would arise from that because he would predictably be reluctant to tell her exactly what was bothering him because he just knew that she'd come up with a smart remark that would make him feel tiny and infinitesimal and to be honest he just didn't want to deal with it right now. Instead, he laid there for what seemed like forever as he waited for sleep to come. Even then, when he finally fell asleep, his dreams were hardly peaceful and serene like he'd have hoped them to be. They were wrought with all the answers to his previous 'what if' questions. Surprisingly, through all of his tossing and turning, Hermione hardly stirred.

Draco jerked awake at some ungodly hour in the morning, and as he laid there in a dead quiet room, he tried to figure out what had woke him up. The dream he had been having was one of the tamer of the few he'd had that night. Confusion swirled around his mind as he listened to what he figured was an empty, silent house. Finally, he heard it: the sounds of things breaking and muffled fighting. Launching out of the bed with little regards as to whether he woke Hermione up or not (though surprisingly she hardly stirred as he flailed around his room blindly looking for his wand), he blindly groped in the darkness for his clothes and quickly put them on as he found them and hopelessly searched his wand, cursing quietly several times as he stubbed his toes on the feet of various furniture items in the room. After the third or fourth frantic pass of the darkened room he stood up straight and snarled at himself, he could have _summoned_ his damn wand the entire time, growling the summoning charm, he was relieved to feel the familiar hum of his wand as connected with its master's hand. Panic made his movements clumsy and jerky as he snuck out of the room. So many possibilities of who or _what_ was fighting or happening lit up his mind like a batch of fireworks. Sliding to the top banister of the upstairs hallway that looked down on the foyer of the house, he pointed his wand at all of the hanging lamps and chandeliers and lit them up.

The room beneath him lit up, and his grey eyes searched around. Here, where he stood, he could hear the sounds of voices shouting curses, hexes, and jinxes and in his frustration he realized that the fighting was coming from outside. Cursing loudly he practically flew down the stairs, pretty much leaping off of the fourth step from the bottom. His un-shoed feet hit the cold tile, and he took a sprint for the door. Just as his hand touched the cold brass knob a curse blasted the door open, sending Draco sprawling backwards. Landing hard on his back he found that the wind had been knocked out of his lungs and his wand lay several feet from where he landed. Rolling around on his back in pain he took several sharp, deep breaths trying to gain back a regular breathing rhythm. His head pounded and rang from the sound of the explosion. Sitting up, he hardly had time to react as a pair of hands grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and started screaming at him in words he couldn't quite understand. Shaking his head and blinking his eyes several times he tried to figure out who was yelling at him. Slowly, as his head cleared he recognized the almost purple face of Ron Weasely screaming at him. As his ears stopped ringing he caught the last bit of Weasel's string of threats,

"-AND I'LL BURN DOWN YOUR GOD DAMN HOUSE AND LEAVE YOU AND YOUR PARENTS HOMELESS!"

Not exactly sure what the ginger idiot had been threatening over, Draco gripped Ron's wrists and did his best to attempt to wrench them off of the collar of his shirt (with little success). Growling angrily he hissed at the blood traitor,

"What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"WHERE. IS. SHE?"

It took the young wizard a moment to figure out what the angry Weasely boy was screaming at him about, but then remembered that he had their friend imprisoned within the walls of his home (even though she was more a permanent guest than a prisoner at this point). Contorting his face into an ugly scow he once again tried to pry the weasel's hands off of his throat (they'd migrated upwards at his lack of a response, probably ready to choke the life out of him with the wrong answer) and barked,

"She's not dead you fucking bloody lunatic! Let me go!"

Without warning Ron let one hand off of his neck, only to smash a haphazardly aimed fist into the side of his face. Pain ignited in that side of his face and finally not wanting to deal with this shit anymore, Hermoine's friend or not, the idiot was acting like a half-brained troll. A swift kick aimed between Ron's legs made the boy let go with a yelp of pain. Seizing the moment Draco summoned his wand and shot a blast at Ron, sending him backwards several feet to land on his back. In the few moments Draco figured he had before the idiot struck back with a vengeance, he looked around at what was happening and recognized his aunt as she fired unsuccessful torture curse after torture curse at Harry Potter, who seemed to either be blocking all of them or ducking behind bits of furniture and around walls. Irritated that his _aunt_ was probably only here because she had more than likely come to check up on 'baby Draco' he disarmed and stunned her. Of course, he had hardly stopped to think what might have come from taking Potter's attention off of trying to stay alive and turning it onto himself. Suddenly, he found himself under the fire of both Ron and Harry. He tried his best to explain what was going on while yelling counter-curses back at them, truly it was chaotic.

Hermione woke first to the saddening realization that the cold spot next to her no longer contained Draco, and to the sounds of shattering glass and shouting voices. The noises were startling enough to make her roll out of bed. A frightened squeak was drowned out by the bedlam outside of the room as she fell to the ground. Milling around on her knees for a few moments, she fumbled for her clothes and pulled them on. Timidly she inched her way out of the room, slowly opening the door she noticed flashes of light and bangs as horribly aimed curses hit the walls of the house. With each and every hit, the house shuddered and groaned in protest under the abuse it was enduring. Terrified of the fighting that was going on Hermione hid back behind the door for a moment, trying to calm the quickened breathing as her heart beat wildly out of control. Clutching her chest she began to fearfully wonder if Draco was in any mortal danger. Was it Voldemort and the other Death Eaters down there attacking him? Was it Bellatrix losing her temper with her belligerent nephew?

What she did not expect, of course, was to hear Ronald Weasely's voice bellowing in the fighting below, screaming out at Draco asking, "WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS HERMIONE, YOU USELESS GIT?"

That surprise was enough to shock her system into overdrive. Tearing the door open she sped out of the room and halfway down the stairs she caught sight of the fighting. In the entry way, the glass windows that had once stood on either side of the now nonexistent door had been shattered and lay on the beige tile like glitter. Several items of furniture had been blasted into oblivion and now only represented splintered bits of wood scattered around the room here and there. Several holes had been punctured in the wall, and not too far from the fighting lay what she simply hoped was the stunned form of Bellatrix Lestrange, a crumpled heap of curly black hair and tattered clothing. Finally, she moved her eyes to the actual fighting and was more than surprised to see both Harry and Ron firing curse after curse at Draco, who fought them off and shot back with his own curses. Angry, suddenly, at her lack of a wand, Hermione shouted down at the mêlée below her,

"RON, HARRY, DRACO! _ENOUGH_!"

Harry was surprised to hear her commanding voice booming over the chaos, as was Draco. The two boys took a brief pause in the fighting to look over at her. Unfortunately, Ron was entirely too livid to stop and taking Draco's sudden drop in defense, he shouted out, "_SECTUMSEMPRA!_"

The sudden movement from Ron's direction and flash of light was enough make Draco look back at Ron a bit too late and with no choice; he took the attack full on. Instantly, one long cut that started just below Draco's jaw, jagging down to the middle of his chest appeared as if an invisible swordsman had cut down his enemy and without warning Draco dropped his wand and fell to his knees, hopelessly trying to cover up the elongated wound that now spurted blood all over the place, a gurgled, strangled scream of pain filled the room as everyone fell silent.

Hermione could hardly remember touching the stairs as she flew down the rest of them, landing firmly on the tile she rushed forward towards Draco. For a moment, it seemed that Ron thought she was running to him and stepped forward as if to greet her, but not exactly holding Ron in her good graces at the moment, she swatted his out-stretched arms and hands aside as she evaded what was sure to be a crushing hug and collapsed beside Draco as she reached him. Blood pooled around her shins and knees, but she hardly seemed to notice. Frantically, she looked around for something –anything- to stop the bleeding. There was nothing, unfortunately, within her immediate reach and beside her; Draco's shivering body was growing weaker and colder. Her mind was a mess and at this moment more than anything, she would paid any price or given anything to have her wand with her. Not exactly sure of what to do, she put her hands on his throat; grimacing a bit at the warm red liquid that gushed around her hand and in between her fingers. Looking back at Ron and Harry she desperately let out a strangled cry for assistance,

"Help me! Please! He's dying!"'

It seemed, however, that the two boys were absolutely shocked at the scene that was unfolding before them, like they'd been petrified by a basilisk. As if they could hardly believe what was happening. Sobbing, Hermione pulled Draco a little closer and tried to comfort him. There was so much fear, so much pain in his eyes, and she felt so _useless_. Leaning forward and pressing her forehead against his, she weeped quietly,

"Draco, no…no, no, no…please don't leave me. I need you…I need you to know that I love you. OK? Will you at least remember that?"

His expression began to grow blank, but he mouthed the words 'I know' before his entire body grew limp and heavy in her grip. Unable to come to terms with the fact that someone she had genuinely cared for and loved had just died in her arms, she let out a loud wail and held his cold, blood covered body tighter; as if she held him close enough he'd come back to life. The realization that they'd just killed a classmate finally sank in and the panic of needing to get out of the manor startled Ron and Harry back to life. Rushing forward, Ron went to pull Hermione off of Draco's body, urgently trying to get her to go with them as he dragged her backwards,

"'Mione, c'mon, we _have_ to go!"

She wrenched her blood-slippery arms out of his grip and went to try to run back towards her dead lover; only to be grabbed around the waist by Ron and practically tackled to the floor. Gasping for air beneath his weight she flailed around and weakly punched her red headed friend in the nose, screaming at him at the same time,

"RONALD WEASELY! HOW COULD YOU _KILL_ HIM? HE WAS TRYING TO EXPLAIN WHAT WAS GOING ON…I…I HATE YOU!"

Touching his bruised nose, Ron shot her a pained look and rolled off of her, but still seemed reluctant to let go of her as he insisted,

"We need to go, Hermione. Bellatrix got half-way through calling You-Know-Who…if he catches us here, he'll kill us!"

Not exactly thinking rationally anymore, she spat at him and said,

"Good!"

Harry, trying to act as the voice of reason in the situation suddenly appeared behind Ron and urgently said,

"Please, we've got to go right _now_!"

The two boys hauled her upright and held onto her as Ron turned and disapparated the trio out of Malfoy manor and away from Draco's body, haloed in his own blood with his grey eyes cold and unseeing –forever staring up at the ceiling of his home. They arrived in a densely treed area that Hermione didn't recognize, but the second she felt her bare feet touch solid ground she took off in any direction that took her far away from Ron and Harry. Tears blinded her as she ran, and she hardly noticed the sounds of pursuit thundering behind her and Ron desperately calling her name and begging her to stop. She didn't feel the thick brush as it whipped against her skin and gave her numerous cuts, she didn't feel the cold that bit at her bare skin, she didn't even notice the sticks and hard ground abusing her bare feet as she ran, all she could feel was the stabbing feeling in her heart. After what felt like hours of running but really translated to a few minutes of a full on spring, her tired legs tangled up within each other and sent her tumbling into the leaf and stick covered ground beneath her. There, she sprawled out on the forest floor and rolled over to look up at the mostly bare canopy. Tears streamed down the side of her face. Beside her, Ron skidded to a halt and gingerly kneeled down. When she felt his fingers brush lightly against her skin, she jolted upwards and slapped his hand away, screaming,

"Don't you _dare_ touch me, Ronald Weasely! You have got to be the _biggest_ idiot that I know. Your stupidity and inability to ever even _listen_ to anyone killed someone today. SOMEONE I CARED ABOUT, SOMEONE I LOVED! Are you aware of that? Do you even know what you did," Ron's face was satisfyingly painful as Hermione continued to scold him, and while deep down she knew she shouldn't, she felt good to see that she was making Ron as miserable as he had just made her, "or were you so god damn proud that you'd finally killed your arch nemesis and tormentor to even give a shit about the consequences of your actions?"

Silence fell between the two friends as Ron simply gaped at the girl he and Harry had practically risked their lives to save –he clearly did not understand where Hermione's grief came from, and all he could ask was,

"You…you were in love with him?"

Exasperated at his reply, Hermione threw her hands up in the air and scooted a little farther away from him,

"Are you kidding me? Out of _everything_ I said, you're hung up on the fact that I love him," Ron opened his mouth as if to correct her for using the present tense and Hermione snapped at him before he could say anything further, "no! I know what you were going to say, but I still love him, and I will _always_ love him. He made me feel wanted when I was left to believe that you and Harry had probably just forgotten about me. What? Did you two party to have the know it all mudblood out of your hair? Did you two feel freer than you'd ever been to not have me nagging at you and breathing down your backs because I wasn't there to correct you every step of the way? Well?"

Ron looked away from her sheepishly and quietly explained,

"It wasn't like that, 'Mione. We wanted to go back and get you as soon as possible, we really did. But we figured in the end that you'd want us to keep hunting Horcruxes, that you'd probably be angrier with us if we wasted time to get you than if we found the Horcruxes then went and got you –which is what we did!"

Her bottom lip trembled as she held back her emotions. Silence fell between them as she slowly let his words sink in, and as her hysteria slowly ebbed away like the tide, she began to see the logical side of things though she couldn't stop the sharp throb that hit her heart like a bullet every time it beat, reminding her that Draco was dead. After a while (probably more than thirty minutes worth) of waiting silently for her to come around and calm down, Ron stood up and offered his hand out to Hermione for help to get up. Reluctantly, she took his hand and allowed him to pull her up. At the warm contact of his skin against hers, she fell into his chest in an embrace that sought simply the comfort of another human being, tears spilling from her eyes again. Awkwardly, Ron wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on the top of her head and simply let her stand there and cry.

Finally, she began to feel the aches and pains in other places but her heart and realized now that she was extremely cold. Shivering she stepped back from Ron and looked away from him sheepishly,

"We should go back," she mumbled.

Nodding in agreement he lead the way while Hermione stumbled around behind him, hugging her arms as tightly as she could her torso, occasionally stumbling, only for Ron to quickly turn around and catch her before she fell. She figured he thought that things were ok between them, but the truth was that she didn't think she'd ever be able to forgive him. Sure, she'd tolerate him, but hardly forgive him for falling into the trap of his own temper and let his head get lost along the way. Everything could have been avoided if he'd just let his emotions sit in the backseat for once in his life and let his brain take the way, at least that was her theory. She fully believed now in being logical as opposed to emotional. Look where trying to be emotional and understand someone else had gotten her. It didn't take long for them to get back to where they'd apparated to, Harry was standing in front of the tent they'd been using on their entire travels with an alarmed look on his face when he first didn't see Hermione dawdling along behind Ron and asked worriedly,

"Did you just leave her?"

Ron shook his head and Hermione stepped around him and walked to where Harry stood and took a deep breath and said in a watery voice,

"I appreciate you coming to get me, I just wish you hadn't have done it the way you did."

Harry shot her a confused look, not exactly understanding her for a moment then said,

"We weren't planning to run into Bellatrix, we were just going to sneak in, grab you and sneak out –we were almost caught off guard when she started firing curses at us."

Ron had now pulled up beside Harry and was nodding feverently as if trying to back him up and prove Hermione that he hadn't been _trying_ to kill Draco and said,

"Then she started to call You-Know-Who and we just…you know, we panicked and I guess that's when the slim- " Hermione shot Ron a fairly deadly look as he started to call Draco a 'slimy git' and quickly corrected himself, "Malfoy I guess got hit with one of the curses Bellatrix fired at us and missed and hit the door, then…you know, I just kinda saw him and lost it."

The two boys babbled on and on for what seemed like forever, justifying what they'd done and how they'd done it, but all Hermione wanted to do was go to sleep. Even though it was midday, she was tired and hardy perturbed by the fact that she was covered in dried blood, there'd be time for personal hygiene when she didn't feel like her heart was going to rot out of her chest at any given moment. Instead of actually saying anything to them as they went on, she just kind of numbly nodded her head and applied a half-understanding, half-hearted 'yeah' here and there when it seemed appropriate. After standing there for what felt like hours and hardly listening to the harrowing tales that Ron and Harry spoke of on their journeys without her, she finally held up a hand and said,

"I'm going to have to stop you two there. I am grateful to be with you guys, but I'm not sure if you noticed, but I've had a bit of a hellish day and I would honestly love nothing more than a quiet place to lie down and sleep for the rest of my life, if you think you can let me do that, that'd be great."

Silently and understandingly, they parted and let her into the tent. There, she shuffled her way to one of the rooms and collapsed on the beds in there. Pressing her filthy face into the pillow, she tried to bring back more tears, she felt like a balloon that was ready to pop, but she couldn't conjure up any more sorrow. She felt numb, all the way from her toes to her head, and she felt nothing anymore. A whole morning and good chunk of her afternoon had spent feeling like she'd just lost half of herself, now she'd grown used to the pain. However, she was no fool and knew that the second she woke up the next day the pain would come back fresh and new. Rolling over to look at the blank canvas tent wall, she stared at it for a moment, mulling over everything that'd happened to her in the last few months and tried to find some sort of way to where she wouldn't have to feel like this, something to prove to her that she shouldn't have loved Draco the way she did, something to give her an excuse to not care.

The problem was, she wanted to do nothing more than care.

Slowly but surely, the exertion of her physical body and emotional mind began to tug her eyelids downwards –as hard as she tried to fight it. She wanted to justify a reason to be angry at Ron, she wanted to hate Harry, she still had things to think about and consider. But her last coherent thought before she slipped away into a dreamless, tired sleep was that whether Ron and Harry liked it or not, she wanted to go back and bury Draco. She wanted to make sure he had a headstone beside his parents in what she assumed was the Malfoy family plot. As abruptly as he died, and as much as he lived thinking he was a failure to his family, she believed he deserved the honor of resting in peace where all his family, the family whose name she had learned he would die protecting, went to their graves. She decided that she'd dig the grave with her own hands, there'd be no magic involved, and she'd make him a beautiful headstone. She'd adorn his grave with flowers…and then she'd burn the Malfoy mansion. Granted, she figured that someone within the family, cousin or something else, had inherited the house –but she didn't think anyone would want to live in a house where three people had died violently. At least, that was her take on it. Yes, tomorrow she'd go back to the mansion (hoping that Voldemort hadn't destroyed it when he arrived, or that Bellatrix wasn't there) and give Draco the proper burial that she knew he deserved and would want.

It was only fitting and at this point was about the only thing that made sense to her.

**A/N: **...so...Draco's dead. e_e oops. THOUGH, I have had this planned since I started writing this story, lol. It was literally my first requirement for the entire plot, I kept rambling and babbling to my friend Mariah all 'LOLOL DRACO'S GONNA DIEEEEEE...but it'll be so sad ;_;' SO. TO **irockursocksoff**, I HOPE THIS HAS GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE STEREOTYPICAL 'HERMIONE AND DRACO BREAK OUT STORY' LOLOLOLOLOLOL /shot by several unhappy readers, IT HAD TO HAPPEN. This isn't the last chapter though, one more and we're ddooonnnneee O: Lol, who thought I would have actually been able to finish a story? HAAAAHHHH. Anyway. I quite like this chapter...minus the whole death part. Maybe I rushed into it, but what ya gonna do? lol.


	21. The caged bird sings of freedom

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

_The caged bird sings of freedom_

_EPILOGUE_

A cold wind howled across a deserted patch of land, covered in a thick blanket of the first snow of the winter. There was very little change in the seemingly desolate scenery, save for a small cemetery and a witch in black robes trucking her way across the area through the snow. Her curly brown hair had been pulled up into a haphazard ponytail and several stray strands blew wildly around her face as the winds raced through the air. She gripped the hood of her robes as it blew backwards off of her head, pulling it down farther over her face. Careful steps hinted that she might have been to this place more than once. She reached the rusted, snow covered wrought iron gate that hung crookedly on its hinges and pulled it open, the rusted metal screeched quietly. The witch milled up and down and in between rows and rows of head stones, pausing occasionally here and there to wipe the snow of the tops of the rounded grave markers and smiled down sadly at the names on them and the dates.

Some dates told her that the occupants were very young.

Others were very old.

After a little while of her aimless meandering between the rows, she finally came upon three fairly new head stones, their white marble barely marred by years of exposure to the elements like some of the others were, the names stood out clearly in black and from left to right the first two read:

_ Lucius Malfoy  
><em>

_January 8th, 1945 – February 16th, 1998 _

__Narcissa Malfoy__

_August 26th, 1955 – February 16th, 1998_

Finally, she came to the third and final headstone and kneeled down in front of it. Pushing her hood back, Hermione Granger pulled out a rolled up bit of parchment that had been tied with a purple ribbon. Her once bright brown eyes were distant with sorry as she gazed at the head stone before her. Reaching forward, she traced the words with a gloved finger and wiped away a stray tear that made its way down her face. Rocking back on the ball of her feet, she sat there in silence for a little while, just staring at the head stone, unable to do or say anything. Finally, she sighed sadly and rolled open the piece of parchment and began to read to the tombstone what she had written, her voice was slightly distant and reminiscent, carried by the wind that whipped around her,

"_Dear Draco,_

_A lot has happened to me and in the wizarding world since your death. I have spent the last four months writing this letter to you with intentions to come visit your grave. I know that I haven't even come back since the end of the war, but for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I suppose you're wondering why I came and gave you a quick burial then left. I wanted to stay and just sleep on your grave forever, but Ron and Harry unfortunately wouldn't let me do it. I'm sure you were standing there with me when we burned down your house as well –I know I could feel you, and I know that you were slightly disapproving of it, but really what would the point of keeping it up have been? The entry way had been trashed and your house elves it seemed had vacated and left for masters that were alive. It was just an empty shell of the memories I made in there with you, and a painful reminder of what once was and could have been. Yes, I agree, Ron did seem to have a bit too much fun in the burning of the manor, but I can assure you that I did it with the heaviest heart I have ever had._

_If I could even explain how much it hurt the first couple months to even think of you, I would. But I can't exactly find the words to describe the hollow feeling that yawned in my stomach and heart like a hungry dragon, eating up everything that was once a happy feeling. Your death was my personal dementor and it seemed that even the defeat of Voldemort a few short weeks after your death wasn't enough to completely brighten my spirits. Yes, I am most certainly glad that he is gone and no longer terrorizing the wizarding world, but I feel that things would have been better with you there. Hah, I laughed even writing that, and I know that you would laugh at me too; you'd be telling me that I was so silly to even be bothered by such a trivial emotion. _

_To be honest, I wanted to sulk for the rest of my life; I wanted to shut out the world and everyone that was trying to help me cope. And for a while, it seemed like I wasn't going to even snap out of it. That is, until I discovered I was pregnant. Believe me, I was just as shocked as you would have been –but in a way I used the surprise to give myself an excuse to believe that you weren't entirely gone. Yes, I was eighteen and probably too young to care for a child –but I figured if I could defeat dark wizards and liberate the oppressed wizarding world, I could probably raise a child on my own. Granted, Ron had other ideas. At first, he was less than pleased that I was pregnant with _your_ child (we're married now, just so you know), but I think in the end he realized just how happy the prospect of having just a piece of you still left in my life made me and pretty much let it be._

_In case you're wondering, I found my parents in Australia and restored their memories and filled them in on everything that had happened again. It felt so good to finally have two people in my life that I knew would accept me for what I was, and always had and would never stop loving me regardless of how I felt. My parents were a little surprised by the news of the coming baby, but came to terms with it a little more quickly than Ron and Harry had, which I was thankful for. I don't think I could have taken another lecture about being safe and how I had been foolish. Honestly, I just don't think that Harry and Ron still understand why I felt the way about you that I did, but I figure in time they will._

_Our little girl was born in October 17, 1998. _

_You know how some parents want a boy or a girl? I honestly didn't give a shit if I gave birth to a troll, I'd still love it because she was something that we made –accidentally albeit, but I believe she was given to me as a coping mechanism. I figured I'd keep the Malfoy tradition of naming their children after constellations and named her Lyris. Her full name is Lyris Andromeda Granger – I didn't dare make her last name 'Weasely' or 'Malfoy' because for some reason I figured you'd come out of your grave and throw things at me if I did._

_Your daughter is eight years old now and I must admit, she looks a lot more like you than she does me, what with the pretty long blond hair that hardly has a curl in sight, and sometimes when she's mad at me over minor things and is staring me down, I can swear I can see your eyes glaring at me through hers. Yes, she knows that you're her dad. In three years she'll be starting at Hogwarts, and let me tell you –she is extremely excited to attend._

_ And I'm certain that you're probably extremely concerned that I'm raising our daughter in a Weasely household, but I assure you that Ron loves her just as much as he does our other kids. To be honest, I think that to this day he's still extremely guilty for what he did. And now that I think about it, I'm not exactly mad at him anymore. I understand that he didn't mean to do it and it'd simply been the moment,_"

Hermione stopped for a moment to shift the position she'd been crouching in and rested her screaming thighs by sitting cross-legged on the ground, hardly paying attention to the fact that the cold had numbed all of her extremities and her nose was a bright cherry red. Rustling the parchment a little, she looked back and found where she'd left off and cleared her throat and spoke now with a little more dignity in her voice,

"_He's even apologized a few times for what he did. Though, there are some days where I get inexplicably mad at him, mostly when I spend too much time thinking about you. Deep down, of course, I accept now that it was an accident. Some days, though, I just wish that I had more time with you. Often times, I go back and read over the books that you'd given me to read through in the first few weeks of my imprisonment. I've come to find that my favorite work is a poem called _I know why the caged bird sings_ by _Maya Angelou_. I first read that poem one afternoon in my room-prison, and I'd first not exactly understood what the poem meant, that or I wasn't exactly focused on it. But every time I go back and read it, I find myself agreeing more and more with what she wrote about. She spoke of how those who are free and carless think of little more than their day-to-day tasks, while someone who is imprisoned and trapped can think of nothing more than their inevitable freedom. I also know that you were trapped as well (and I know you'd disagree to that as well, but you were!), you were a prisoner to your family and your conscience. All you wanted was to be free of the oppression, you wanted to be your own person, and you had been given the chance to finally develop and you collapsed inward on yourself. Yet, it pains me to think about it because I could see that I was getting through to you and you were slowly coming around and coming to terms with what had happened and who you were._

_Thanks to you, I know why the caged bird sings; the caged bird sings of freedom._

_ Love,_

_ Hermione._

_P.S. This is the only time I've given myself to come visit you, and I feel now that I've tied up loose ends –but there's no need for me to continually drag you down in your afterlife (wherever you are) with constant, boring and useless updates from me. I hope that you heard me, and I just want you to know that no matter what and regardless of who I'm married to, I still love you."_

With that, she stood up and brushed the snow off of her knees and looked down sadly at the grave. Taking a deep breath she let go of the long piece of parchment and watched as it was taken and dragged away by the winter wind. Pulling her cloak around her tightly, she blinked away the tears that threatened to fall once more and quickly disapparated with a quiet 'pop!'. To anyone that had not seen her come or go would never know that she was there, like how the rest of the world would hardly know of the happiness she'd been given and all the things she'd learned about life and love from someone whom she'd once considered to be a great enemy.

War does funny things to people, and Hermione Granger had not been exempt from such torment.

**A/N:** I would like to start off by saying that all the characters in this fan fiction are obviously _not_ mine, they belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling. The story's title and chapter titles were taken directly from Maya Angelou's poem _I know why the caged bird sings_. Next, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to review this story, so thank you to the following people: **harrys-girl-4-life, irockursocksoff, zelda4ever, 8869fanread, Lyenuv, Very Halogen, , Saunwolfgirl **(I hope that you _have_ decided to start reading the Harry Potter books, as they're a fantastic series!)**, whitestripes123** (you truly took the time to at least comment on every chapter that came out, and I could always count on you to have something good to say, and you certainly put a smile on my face!)**, EmoPrincess21, NinjaClairnetGirlBianca, **and** aringle42 **(you've always had nice things to say too, and I am so sorry that Draco was driving you up the wall, haha; but it was kind of how I imagined him, but as you can see, even though he died, he kinda wizened up in the end, right? It's the thought that counts? ...RIGHT? Lol, you were also a joy to get reviews from, thank you so much for your time!). Seriously, I can't thank you guys enough. I might not have 500+ reviews, but you guys sure do make me feel loved! THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH FOR READING THROUGH ALL OF THIS, I HONESTLY DON'T THINK I WOULD HAVE FINISHED THIS STORY IF I DIDN'T HAVE PEOPLE TO LOOK FORWARD TO COMMENTING ON EACH CHAPTER OR EVEN TO SEE PEOPLE FAVORITING MY STORY OR ADDING IT TO THEIR WATCH LIST, HNNGGGHH. Not to mention I obsessively watch the amount of hits my stories get...SO THAT'S ALWAYS EXCITING. Oh, and I guess I should thank my friend Maraiah (aka **Courvoisier**), whose screen name I have NOT FIGURED OUT HOW TO PRONOUNCE OMG, for dealing with me flailing and complaining about writing and for letting me ramble off ideas to her...and while she hasn't gone through and reviewed every chapter like she said she was going to, I still love her. I have to...we're married...on facebook. AND I SUPPOSE WHILE I'M HERE I'LL TELL YOU TO CHECK OUT HER BITCHIN' NEW STORY MONTHS, it's a Dramione fanfic, broskis. And I pretty much taught her how to write, so if you wanna good read while I work on my next story (which is already in the works, LOLOLOL), CHECK HER OUT. Again, I can't thank you all enough. LOTS OF LOVE TO YOU GUYS. **_LOTS. OF. LOVE._**


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